Love and sin
by ZakuReno
Summary: What happens when a certain brunette got lost and somehow found herself in the arms of our favorite suspicious redhead? Will it be time for some kickass or a new romance which they never saw coming? Or maybe both? RenoXOC
1. Our Meeting

_A/N: Since I don't know how but always managed to forget about the oh-so-mighty disclaimers in almost all of my stories. Yeah, I'll just write the sad truth in this rewritten first chap. _

_Enjoy and don't forget to review!_

_Disclaimer: I own everything in this fanfic! ==" Except Reno and the other original characters, places and everything which showed up in the FF7 compilation…sucks._

* * *

The brunette hummed a tune while her right hand busily stirred at what looked like scramble egg in a pan which she was holding with her other hand. She looked over her shoulder and called out to the middle aged man, who was flipping through pages of the monochrome newspaper in his hands, while he sat behind a mahogany dining table. "Dad, breakfast is ready. Say hello from me to mom, kay. I'm going first."

"What about your breakfast?" The man with golden-brown locks, almost auburn under the lights, poked his head out of the papers and watched as his daughter hastily fiddled with the knot on the back of the red, frilly apron she was currently wearing.

"Nope, I'm late. I'll eat on the way." The apron was finally thrown to the chair behind her as soon as it no longer hugged her slim waist. Midnight blue, sailor uniform which hung right above the start of her skirt, accented her curves as the short skirt and knee high socks made her legs look longer, not that she wasn't tall enough.

Her height was taller than most of the other average girls that she knew, roughly about 5'5 when most of the girls in her class was 5'3 or shorter.

She took a quick glance at the watch which was ticking impatiently on the table behind her, and immediately regretted her actions. She was definitely going to be late…again.

"Study well." The man said as he turned his attention back to the news in front of him.

"Yeah, yeah. Got it." She rolled her eyes at the comment before snatching a two level bento box and sprinted towards her house's exit, clumsily wearing her shoes in front of the door before heading out.

The door was pushed open as wind rushed through her own golden-brown hair which went curly below her nape and naturally fell in front of her left shoulder. "Fuck, late again!"She cursed and mentally slapped her forehead before turning to the one storey flat beside her house.

The brunette rapped at the poor door bell impatiently and paced in front of the waist level, black gate as no reply came.

After deciding that the young owner of the house would need more disturbances to be woken up, she turned her head around, searching for any unwanted spectators and let her hands slipped behind the dark green, poor excuse of a post box. She felt her skin trailed along the dusty, rusting metallic surface before snatching it out of the dirty, hidden exterior as soon as her fingers met with a smoother, uneven plane.

The key smelled as bad as the post box, which was attached to the wall beside the gate. She cringed at the stench of dust, rust and something saline (which she doesn't want to know where it came from) and pushed the waist height gate open to its sides.

As soon as enough space was open for her slim form to slip in, she dusted her fingers against her skirt and sprinted to the mahogany door. "I'm coming in." The brunette excused herself before inserting the keys, which she had just collected without permission, into the key hole and opened the door as it gave a satisfying click with a little twist of the small, metallic object.

"Kei, wake up!" She screamed after walking through the hallway and barging in to a boyish room.

"C'mon, I really need your help!" The brunette strutted to the bed at the furthest corner of the room, ignoring her conscience which was currently screaming for her to clean up the chaotic space.

The queen sized bed was occupied by a man who was lying on his sides, or more likely, a pile of limbs tangled up with soft green covers. To the wall across the side of the bed was a study table which was buried by document and papers on top of it, and between the bed and the table were mountains of unorganized magazines which looked like it could crumble down with a little pressure from any direction. Half of the content of a trash bin, beside the table, were out of its place. Crumpled paper ball, boxes of snack wrappings and empty cans loitered through the middle of the room, as if its container had been spilled and hastily cleaned up, except the garbage which was beyond arm's reach.

The only organized thing in the room was a shelf beside the foot of the bed, which was lined up by three rows of shonen jump magazines, one row of random trophies and medals, plus another which was filled up with random comics.

The teen hastily crept up to the bed and pulled the binds out of the window above the raven haired, still sleeping man. Sunlight immediately shone to his face, the man protested with a groan of annoyance and shifted to his stomach, burying his face into the pillows.

"Wake up, dammit!" She violently shook her cousin's shoulder and immediately let go, once the man flipped to his back and propped himself with both of his elbows.

Kei rubbed his half lidded, brown orbs, before he squinted and turn his head around to find the identity of his rude intruder. "Sei…ra…?" He drawled sleepily and tried to push his eye lids up, but apparently failed and let them droop down again. "Whatcha doin here? I'll be there in another minute for dinner."

Before the man was able to pull the tangled covers up from his limbs, to his chest, the brunette had grasped his bigger wrist and whined. "No, its still morning, you have to give me a ride to my school, please. I'm late!"

"What?" He propped himself up again and shouted with his sleep induced, out of tune voice. "They won't put you on detention if you came late once or twice."

"It's my fifth time, since the last three weeks." Seira sighed and blurted out to her now silent cousin. "C'mon, please. I'll make your favorite for dinner." She sat on the bed and pleaded with all her might; wide eyes and all, which resembles of an innocent child's.

"Make that twice." Kei sat upright and ruffled his raven mane, finally awake and trying to tame his bed ridden locks.

"If I make it in time today." The brunette reasoned, trying to fulfill circumstances which would still profit her much, despite the current situation she was in.

"Okay, okay, now off! Don't want me to drive you with this attire." He placed a foot on the tiled floor and flinched at the cold surface which met his skin.

Seira stood up and let her older cousin by three years to remove himself from the confinements of his bed, ignoring the fact that he was only wearing a pair of black boxers and white undershirt. She was practically used to it, after more than three years of waking him up to go to school together and now, waking him up every evening for either dinner or any of his afternoon class. She wasn't really a morning person to begin with, so without the help of her mother for the past month was really getting on her routines.

"Be quick, I'll wait outside." With that, she left the grumbling man and made her way out of the house with a smirk plastered on her face.

* * *

"Use this." The brunette, who was leaning against the front entrance's door frame, heard her cousin's voice behind her and a helmet was forced down to her head before she was able to turn around.

"Why don't _you _use it?" She whined as she adjusted the humid headgear on her petite head.

"It's suffocating in there, besides, I'm the one who'll get killed if something happens to you." Kei walked pass her and opened his front gate, before going to a passage beside his house and came back with a silver bike straddled between his thighs. "Once is enough, Sei." He shuddered as he remembered the memory of his uncle two years ago before making his way outside the gate and igniting the engine to life.

Sei sat behind him and gingerly wrapped her arms around her cousin's waist, while the loud roar of their ride covered the brunette's stifled laughter. She still remembered the day of their first accident with the bike, they had fallen off in the middle of the road when a cat suddenly jumped from an alley and Kei lost control of the steers. She escaped with a few scrapes and bruises and no stitches at all, thanks to her cousin who took most of the damage to his own body. While the owner of the bike, who protected her, got a broken left leg, stitches on his arms and a dislocated shoulder which was already bad enough, even before her father added a punch on his bruised cheek and busted lips.

"No one saw you using the key, right?" The raven haired man shouted over his ride's loud, buzzing engine and snapped his cousin out of her reminiscing trance. "I don't wanna see my house entered by burglars who doesn't even have to barge in!" He added jokingly.

"No worries, there wasn't a single soul!" She shouted back against his back and impatiently tugged at his black T-shirt. "Can't you go faster? I'll never make it in time at this rate."

"No, don't wanna take the risk." He shot back annoyingly,

"Promise I won't tell dad. See, the road is empty." She reasoned again with an innocent grin plastered on her face and waved her index finger at the empty road.

Kei sighed in exasperation and resisted the urge to scratch the back of his head, a gesture which had been with him whenever he was confused between anything.

Since the first time that they met, three years ago, he had learned that he could never decline the brunette's wishes and requests. And now, even though he couldn't see the puppy look which she was certainly giving behind him, he could still hear the expression through her voice, thus making a decline impossible as long as he was still conscious. "It's not like your dad would believe me, if he found out." Was all the grumbled protest that he could muster, before following the brunette's order without further resistance.

* * *

"Thanks, Kei!" The brunette hopped from the bike and immediately ran towards the white building that they've stopped in front of, not forgetting to throw the headgear which had restrained any free movement of her head, to her cousin's unprepared hands.

"Don't sleep in class!" Kei shouted to his retreating cousin, after fumbling with the helmet which he barely caught.

"Not helping!" She turned around and stuck her tongue out at the teasing male, turning back around after almost stumbling backwards over her own moving limbs.

Seira panted and cursed as she hiked through the fourth flight of stairs. Why the hell should her class always be on the highest floor? The highest floor was usually reserved for seniors who were facing their last year in school, but her class last year had somehow gotten into it, thus making this her second year residing on the damned floor.

She could never fathom why, but even though she had done this tiring routine for years, every morning, she could never get use to it. Wherever her class was, she would always curse her way up in annoyance through the stairs. It was probably her psychological state who refused to go to school this early every day, lucky Kei who doesn't have to go through this again.

The brunette couldn't resist the urge to let out a sigh of relieve as soon as her foot stepped on the narrow hallway where her class was located and took big steps towards her destination while ignoring the burning lactic acid spreading through her leg. The bell had rung when she was still halfway through the torturous stairs, so why bother to rush if you're already late, she just hoped that her pregnant teacher isn't in one of her infamous mood swings today.

"I am so sorry Mrs. Kenny. I promise this will be the last time." Sei immediately bowed her head down in apology after pulling open the door sideways. Not even bothering to save a glance or two to see the condition of her class.

Silence greeted her, instead of her teacher's usual lecture about punctuality and torrents of questions seeking for her reason for coming late again today.

Why is everyone so quiet today? Her class had always been one of the most difficult ones to handle, especially during homeroom where they could chat without bothering about the teacher's incessant, pointless speeches.

"Sei!" A hushed whisper finally distracted her from her own thoughts and she slightly tilted her head towards her friend's direction. "It's not Mrs. Kenny, it's the vice principle!"

Her friends would have certainly doubled over in laughter at her expression, if their vice principal wasn't glaring daggers at them. Seira's eyes widened in shock and mouth hung open for awhile before she snapped and straightened herself out of her stupor.

Jade orbs immediately stared at a pair of stern hazel eyes and she visibly rolled her eyes in anticipation of the incoming scolding.

"Seira Howard?" The stout male called out, she could already see a vein popping out of the corner of his wide temple even before she spoke a word. His hands lifted up the black, thick rimmed glasses that he wore at the bridge of his nose while the other ran through the rare, shining, grayish hair which settled on top of his round head.

"Yes sir." She replied lazily. It wasn't like this was the first time she was scolded by the old fashioned vice principal, she was used to this and never missed the chance to make him more pissed. He wasn't one of the teachers who could really affect her grades after all, so why bother the good student get up. A lot of students and teacher also didn't like him, adding the reasons for her to despise him after the fact that most of the useless rules were made by him.

"I am sorry to disappoint you, but I'm here to tell the class that Mrs. Kenny will be taking her maternity leave starting form today onwards and you all should study by yourself for her periods today. Thanks for reminding me to ask how many times have you come late this month?" The gross looking man said as he wiped his wide forehead with a handkerchief from his pants pocket.

"5 times, sir." She replied begrudgingly this time, eyes wandering around her school's fat covered vice principal. How could a person live with a body like that? Full of flab and excess sweating. She could see the buttons of his white shirt, struggling not to pop out underneath the russet blazer which barely hugged his whole round, swollen belly. His black pants couldn't even fit his belly; it was secured with the help of a brown leather belt beneath his basket ball like tummy.

"Meet me in my office, in another ten minutes." The brunette made a face and mimicked the middle aged man's face as soon as he walked past and wasn't facing her anymore. "Seira Howard!" The male suddenly shouted, shushing her class's giggles at her act and her own disgusted face.

"Yessir?" Sei smiled innocently and slightly tilted her head in mock confusion as she turned around to face the mad man.

"Don't try to escape, if you're not there in another ten minutes. I'll double your detention."

"Yes, sir." She replied boringly and made her way to her seat, right in the middle of the class, as soon as the lard ball excuse of a vice principle shut the door behind him.

"Way to go, girl! You should see your face just now, priceless!" One of her male classmate, the one who had had the courage to whisper (to the whole class) and alerted her earlier, strolled to her desk and greeted with mirth. "I've seen you came late and got scolded by him for more than ten times and he never called your parents?"

"He called, but my dad doesn't really care if I came late as long as I don't skip school or fail classes." The brunette shrugged and opened her two leveled bento box as soon as she had hung her bag on the hook beside her messily decorated (scribbled) desk.

"Your dad never changed, huh." Another brunette, with straight, chocolate locks which flowed down to her waist, showed up beside the male and ruffled his dirty blond, spiked locks in amusement.

"Stop that! Took me hours to fix this every morning." He whined and petted his locks back and sideways, returning the stray strands to its original angle.

"Yeah, he never really changed his principles about school." Seira smiled at her childhood friend and said with a mouth full of rice and her meal.

"Study what's important, enjoy school life but don't hang out with weird guys." Both of the smiling female said in unison and broke into a fit of laughter as the whole class turned their attention at them.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, the brunette rapped at the beige door and slid it open as soon as she heard a word of acknowledgment from inside. "Excuse me, sir." She had come five minutes late on purpose of course. Her school had always worked this way since she first joined at first grade. If your teacher calls you to meet them during lunch break, find them before lunch break ends and then they'll really appreciate you. When the book store said that your book is going to be ordered and delivered tomorrow, come back in a few days if you're lazy to bug the receptionist by returning everyday and asking for your book that was supposed to be in your hands yesterday.

"So, what's your reason today? Just say it, I'm all ears." The old, ludicrously, fat man propped his elbows on the mahogany desk, he was sitting in front of, and rested his triple layered chin on top of his intertwined fingers.

"Actually sir, my mother is currently eight months pregnant and had moved to live with her mother for a while. I'm left to do all of the house works, so I kinda slept late with all the home works from school, thus preventing me from waking up early." Seira explained monotonously like someone who had been practicing a speech for hours, minutes in her case, and finally got the chance to say it out loud. "You can call my dad if you don't believe me." She added after a few moment of consideration.

"If school assignments are your reasons this time, then you shall finish all of your home works due for tomorrow after school, today."

"Heh?" Was all she could muster out while train of curses ran through her brain.

"You're dismissed. Don't forget to place your books on my desk when you're done." He waved a hand of dismissal and returned to the papers which were stacked neatly on his desk. "And don't try to run away, I'll make sure by any means that your books are here today." He added without diverting his attention from the papers below his big nose.

The brunette just sighed and exited out of the room after a small dispirited 'yes sir' escaped her lips. There was no use to fight him after all, it would just be a useless waste of energy and she preferred to use it on other things like finishing her assignments…NOT. It was her free period now and she would enjoy it with her friends.

She would certainly just stay back for an hour maximum and do whatever she could finish of her assignments. It wasn't that the old man would really check her book. He would just flip through pages and see if she had really done anything.

Oh god, an extra hour in school instead of hanging out with the others, couldn't this day get any better.

* * *

Half an hour had passed after the supposed to be glorious bell which marked the end of school. And here she was, yawning for the thousandth time over her unfinished home works and trying her best not to let her head fall and bang it against the hard desk, in her empty class.

The others had headed out after some persuasion from her that she would certainly come over in another hour or so. She was sure that no work would be done with her friends around, all of their chatting and jokes would certainly distract her and made her talk all the while instead of doing her work.

Sei finally rested her head on top of her sprawled arms on the table and stretched her mouth as another yawn escaped. She never knew that house chores could really take your time and energy, no wonder her mother could always manage to sleep early after an afternoon nap.

"Five minutes." The brunette mumbled to herself and let her eye lids drop. She had never managed to sleep for long in school, except during classes. So this evening would be the same like the usual, right?

* * *

Sei couldn't help but shiver and let out an unlady-like sneeze as cold air crept to her body, beneath the thin uniform, which wrapped her slim frame.

She rubbed her damped eyes, from the impact of her body's hard reaction against the cold and literally froze when an uncalled voice reached her ears, too near for her liking. "Yo, you awake?"

The brunette frantically forced her eyes open and tried to recognize the smooth, yet masculine voice but all she could take in was a blur of black, white and red. And the obvious strong arms which were under her back and knees.

She actually still took her time to squint and try to focus her vision, despite her self defense's alarm which was blaring inside her head. And when her jade orbs finally managed to see a redhead, with a pair of…riding goggles? Perched on top of his forehead, instead of his unnaturally widened eyes which were staring back at her with equal shock as her jade one's and red crescent tattoos on his cheekbones. The first thing which she managed to do was actually connect her fist with the unknown man's said tattoo, instead of her voice which was desperate to escape from her throat.

"Lemme go! Pervertjerkassholekidnapper!" The panic girl shouted all at once, unable to chose which suited him best after several more jabs and protests from the redhead.

"Yo, stop! I haven't even done anything to you-" The disoriented man shouted back with equal panic with the brunette and finally fell when a sharp elbow on his abdomen took the air out of his lungs.

"Don't even think of doing anything that you're planning to!" Seira was now beyond panic and had moved on to a whole new level of desperate. Anything which could be used(flailing limbs)to put distant between her and her abductor was put to use, ignoring the fact that her skirt and shirt had ridden up, exposing a good portion of her undergarments and fresh flesh which weren't covered by it. Thank god she was using tights, decreasing her level of embarrassment as soon as she realized her wild actions.

"Calm down, ba-girl!" He amended, afraid of triggering anything dangerous which hadn't been unleashed by the alarmed teen who had scrambled away from him, immediately after he fell and dragged her on top of him in the process.

"W-who the hell are you and what do you want?" She screamed again before pushing herself further away, eyes widening and silence befalling her not long after.

"Patience, I'll explain." Reno narrowed his eyes and began to explain despite the lack of attention from his frail looking assailant, who was starring curiously at her legs, as if she had never saw one in her life. "Found you in Midgar." He concluded his so called explanation and stared incredulously when the brunette suddenly slapped her leg, hard. "Yo, what's wrong with you?"

"I can't." Sei started, uncertain of what had just happened while the redhead who had stood treaded closer with caution, making sure that he was not too close if she suddenly decided to lash out one of her limbs again. "I can't move my legs." She said slowly, as if still in fear that the thing she said would bit her back.

"Nah, probably just over worked. You don't have a scratch on you, except for your bloody clothes." The redhead shrugged and said casually, despite the look of horror which had crept on the brunette's face.

"B…lood…?" She looked down and it took her for awhile to recognize the crimson stain across her dark blue uniform. A hand immediately covered her mouth, the only source of her bile to escape as a wave of nausea hit her abdomen, triggered by the distinct metallic odor of blood when she looked down and involuntarily brought her nose to the source of the offending stench.

And the next thing that occurred went as fast as she realized that she had passed out. Her body giving out beneath her, some ought to censor curses and darkness that took over.


	2. Lonely days

Seira didn't wake up as abruptly as before. She stayed still and silent this time, before opening her jade orbs and taking in the same scene as the last time she did.

It wasn't a dream. She can still feel her body slightly swaying as the redhead walked with her in his arms, cold wind caressing her face and the pungent smell of outdoor tingling her nostrils.

The brunette stared at the hard-to-admit good looking man who was carrying her, bridal style and noticed that his eyes were blue, something which she rarely saw in her place(Contact lens not included). It wasn't that his bright hair wasn't enough distraction for people, but that was certainly dyed. The bright red was just too ludicrous to be natural and his eyes brows weren't that red, it was dark brown in fact.

"Where are you taking me?" She said calmly this time, gaining the redhead's attention that had been attached to the road ahead. Why she wasn't in her class, the last place that she had remembered she was in, she cannot fathom why. But wherever she was now, it certainly wasn't an area near her place. The surroundings that she had observed just looked completely different, skies full of twinkling stars and untouched grounds, that they were walking on, which she was certain until now didn't exist anymore in her over civilized country.

"To my place, since the nearest inn would be in Edge and walking there would certainly be a royal pain for my legs." The redhead glanced at her for awhile and quickly watched the road again, as if he was evading eye contact with the girl in his arms.

His actions went unnoticed and despite the weird terms and names of placed that she realized he had used, the brunette shrugged it off and chose to confirm the condition of her body first. "Let me down." She ordered and tried to move but found that her body was restrained by a black jacket around her slim frame, the same jacket which was now missing from the man who was carrying her.

The lanky man, for once, couldn't find a thought to talk back or disobey at the demanding voice. Her familiar jade orbs were filled with fiery determination, a gaze that Reno could easily count, with his fingers, its owners across the whole Gaia.

He lowered his hand from under her knees and slowly let her legs step on the cracked ground, while his other hand still held firmly behind her back, so that he could easily catch her, in case if her legs really gave out beneath her.

Seira clenched both of her fists in anticipation, preparing herself for whatever was coming if her fears were proven to be right.

As soon as the redhead tilted her body to the ground and let her whole weight on her own feet. Her knees buckled beneath the pressure and gave in to her own weight. She relaxed her muscled and prepared for the inevitable. For once, really wanting to feel the pain on her knees as it collided with the ground. But instead of the ache that should've stung to her bone, she felt her face being pressed against a hard wall of muscle, clad in thin fabric and a hand behind her back which held her in place.

"Dammit, girl! What's wrong with you?" The Redhead cursed as he gently placed the limp brunette on the naked ground, unable to retain the uncomfortable position for long.

The teen let her limp hands sprawled, on both of her sides, on top of the dusty ground, shoulders slumped forward in defeat and head hung low. She stared down at the dry, earthy ground as her jumbled up thought tried to take in her situation.

Reno sighed in exasperation and squatted down in front of her, for the first time in his life, a woman was making him think in circles. First she was so full of energy and the next thing he know she was just a heap of depressed, tangled limbs, unable to do anything on her own. "What do you want now?" His words felt harsher than what he had intended it to be, the brunette didn't seem to care and kept her gaze at the ground as if diamonds were imbedded on the dirty surface.

"Go home…." The whisper came after moments that the redhead thought the brunette had turned mute after her legs had died out on her and the next thing he had expected was a shrill scream that would prove that insanity had finally claimed over her.

Another sigh escaped from his lips again and the redhead ran a hand through his fiery, crimson locks. He was certainly going to have grey hair if he sighed again. "Where's your house?"

Another pause and the teen replied with an equally tired voice as before. "Kasukabe.

The name of the place itself struck a question in the redhead's well-informed brain which people, after observing his acts, thought was as small as a nut. He had always been one of the best pilots amongst the other Turks, remembering places which he had flown over or stepped on was as easy as a child learning on how to talk, it was more of an instinct rather than memorizing for him.

Kasukabe…? He repeated the name over and over again in his head. It sounded like a name of a place from Wutai, but he couldn't remember any places with the exact same name and even if she was really from Wutai…how the hell did she reach Midgar? "You from Wutai?" The question flowed out of his mouth without further thinking. If there was anything Reno was sure of, it would be the origin of the girl, which could be anywhere but Wutai. One glance at her colored eyes and locks would be able to prove that.

The brunette perked her head up and raised an eyebrow at him, in a similar fashion that the redhead did when he first heard the name of her birth place. "Wutai, where's that?"

The redhead was just able to gawk at her. The girl had either been holed up in a tower like rapunzel and had never met anyone since she was a baby or she was an alien which came from another planet. He preferred the latter actually, being the imaginative adult he was. "You don't know Wutai? Wutai war, fight against Shinra, Mako reactor, resort place, vacation, ninjas? Doesn't that ring any bell?" It was Reno's turn to be desperate now. He just couldn't believe anyone without the knowledge of Wutai, the village dominating the western continent of the planet, which went on war with Shinra, the company he worked in, and the town which made the best booze too.

"I know ninjas, and if you're referring to Japan, yes I live there." She said naively and had seemed to be lifted up by herself from her previous breakdown. The brunette was now sitting straight and had gained back the interest in her jade orbs, hands which were previously strewn on her sides were now folded neatly on her lap

He quirked his eyebrow at both the sudden changes and unknown places that he never knew existed. It was either his brain was getting blunt by the lack of hard mission in these peaceful years or the brunette came from another world…or she was just insane. "Japan? Where's that?" It was his turn to inquire in a similar fashion this time.

Silence fell on both of them, before Reno, being the Reno he always was broke the silence by letting out an uncivilized groan and ruffled his hair in frustration. "Forget about this, for now! We'll sort it out once we reach my place. All this thinking is just making me hungry, babe."

And Seira, being the Seira she always was could only roll her eyes and huffed in annoyance. "Don't call me that. My name's Seira, Seira Howard."

"And I'm Reno, nice to meet you…babe." The redhead extended and offered his hand to the sitting girl on the ground with his trademark, cocky smirk plastered on his face. While Seira just sighed and silently prayed in her heart.

God, if this was a dream, a slap to wake her up would be most welcomed.

* * *

Another ten minutes of walking passed in silence before they reached a 30 storey tall apartment complex, near observatory-like buildings which was labeled as 'Healen Lodge' on a road sign below it.

Reno walked ignorantly as people stared at the weird 'couple'. The brunette who distracted herself by nervously twiddling with her own fingers and the redhead who never forgot to return a similar stare or a fiercer glare to everyone who walked pass them and gave a curious glance.

It wasn't rare for a Reno to be seen in compromising situations with girls of different ages, but bringing the so called 'lady' to his apartment…wasn't something you could see every day.

The elevator stopped with a high pitched 'ding' and revealed the empty, white painted hallway, decorated by mahogany doors on one side of the wall and green potted plants on the other.

The sound of his boot thumping against the white tiled floor resonated along the corridor and disturbed the perfect silence which had been retained. Dusk had passed long ago and the moon was up high now. Reno paused in front of the furthest door from the lift and went into a debate in his head.

Where did he last left his keys…?

Hard to admit, but this was one of the usual problem that his oh-so-great brain tend to forgot. What could he say, Yo, Turks were also humans. Even though he was sure that no other Turks except him had lost their apartment's key for more than five times in their life.

"Hello? You okay?" Sei waved her hand in front of the redhead's face, snapping him out of his stupor and immediately gaining his attention back to earth, Gaia in this case.

"Huh, nothing, just wondering where did I place my keys." He shrugged and said nonchalantly.

"How are you going to enter if you don't know?" She shot an eyebrow up and eyed her laid back savior.

"I got a spare one behind the post box." He jerked his chin towards the red, classic post box beside the door and lifted her higher up so that her hand would be able to reach up. "It's stuck with duct tape, you gotta rip it off."

Dejavu. She felt her hand along the dusty surface and can't help but smile when her hand caught the unnatural lump on the even metal, feeling all too familiar with the situation. "Got it." The brunette peeled off the sticky, pointed metal and immediately shoved it into the keyhole as Reno lowered her back.

The room was dark when they stepped in, hiding Seira's grinning face from the redhead, who was trying to search for a way to turn on the lights without using his currently unavailable hands.

Reno was able to walk without any difficulties in the dark room, while Seira was left in the dark, just wondering how the apartment looked like.

Suddenly, a soft cushion met her bottom and she felt the redhead's arms leaving her back and leg. The light flickered on before she was even able to register everything in mind.

A fifty inch LCD TV was propped on top of a waist height, wooden cabinet, complete with its speaker standing tall on either side of it. Magazines were strewn across a glass coffee table between the TV and a beige, three seated sofa that she was sitting at, a thin layer of dust coating each and every exposed surface.

The living room was quite spacious even with table and shelves of different size and types against each wall of the room, with either photo frame or other random decoration on top of it.

A round, analog clock which was mounted on the light blue wall, which she previously thought was white, right behind the LCD, showed that it was already half past ten.

"What's so funny?" Reno entered the room, from a short hallway beside the television and hastily piled the magazines on the table on top of each other, hazardously. "Ignore the mess, I don't really stay here that often or clean up."

Seira straightened herself and erased the silly smile from her face, but not before giggling to herself for a while. "Nothing important, the place where you kept your spare keys reminded me of someone."

"Great mind thinks alike." He snorted and grinned as he moved closer to the brunette and hoisted her up in his arms again. "I'll prepare something to eat while you take a bath."

The wall on the back of the living room had two doors. The one to her left, which was open, let her took a glance of what seemed like an open kitchen area and a dining table. The other, which Reno had just opened with the help of one of his elbow, was occupied by a king sized bed in the middle of the naturally dimly lit room.

"Will it be okay for me to stay here, I mean, what about your family or girlfriend?" The brunette inquired after she was placed on the edge of the huge, plain, white bed and Reno disappeared to the door on the right side of the bed.

"It's okay, I live alone here. Don't worry about these things will ya, how do you even know that I have a girlfriend or not?" She could hear his voice echoing in the other room which she had guessed to be the bathroom and started to crack, twist and turn her fingers. A habit which she had took since she was small, whenever she was either nervous, waiting or both.

"Well," She nervously started and darted her head from side to side, taking in the content of the room. Two nightstands, one with a lamp and the other with a digital clock which was shining off bold, green numbers, was pressed against the wall, beside the pillows which were messily arranged on the top side of the mattress. A mahogany closet furnished the wall on the left side of the room, while a window, the only current source of light, showed the night sky on the wall across it. "You're not that ugly, and your house seems to be a bit too big for someone who lives alone-"

"I know I'm hot, you don't have to be shy to say it." The redhead suddenly poked his head out, complete with his trademark cocky smirk and disappeared in the other room again after startling the poor girl who almost dropped from the corner of the bed.

"Ass." Seira breathed out and rolled her eyes, shuffling back to a comfortable position on the soft bed, with the help of her hand.

"And for the size of this place…you can just say that my company had its glory days." Reno finally appeared from the mysterious room and easily hoisted her up in his arms again.

"Had? Are you some general manager or director? Normal employee wouldn't get an apartment of this size from their company."

The bathroom was as grand as the other rooms that she had seen. A big, transparent, shower cubicle stood on the furthest corner of the dimly lit room. The floor, different with the other rooms which were covered by white tiles, were decorated by wooden patterned marble, bouncing back the lights from four yellow artificial lights on each corner of the ceiling. The white, classic looking porcelain sink was lodged on top of a similar patterned stall which took almost half of the wall, a mirror of the same width stuck on the wall above it. Blending in with the other pastel colors was a white toilet on the opposite side of the basin and another mahogany closet, similar to the one in the master room.

The Turk ignored the mention of his past tense and placed her on a white bathtub beside the shower."I'm sort of a…multi talented body guard."

"Bodyguard?" The brunette repeated in confusion. "I would really love to work in your place if a bodyguard can get an apartment of this size for himself, can't even imagine how much your salary is."

The redhead reached for the shower head which was hooked to a peg on top of the tub, feigning ignorance towards the unaware girl below him. "Do you want me to help you take a bath?" He bent down till their face were only inches apart and smirked, succeeding in gaining a blush from the teen's cheeks.

"W-w-what! Don't make me take back that compliment I gave you just now, I said you were a BIT good looking but it doesn't mean that you're my type." Seira shoved the inching man away as she grew flustered at her own body reaction.

She could feel the heat rising within her cheeks, which was definitely growing red to such an extent that it could put her savior's unnaturally bright hair to shame. Yes, she admitted that the redhead was a bit of her type, in fact, he was everything that she had imagined of. Tall, well built but not overly buff, handsome with a bad boy personality and so far he looked kind enough to save a damsel in distress like her. She frowned at the label that she had just given herself with, she hated being a helpless and weak type of person but she knew that she wasn't in any position to complain right now.

"Aaw, you hurt me, babe. I was just trying to help." Reno pouted with a mock hurt expression and held his heart with his free hand.

"Whatever." She spat and snatched the shower head from the redhead's hand, looking away childishly in hopes of hiding her beet red face.

"Chill, babe. I was just joking." He couldn't help but chuckle, even though he knew that it would further provoke the brunette. "Guess you'd have to bear with my clothes for tonight. And try not to see your shirt. Don't want you fainting again." He grabbed a set of fresh, white towel and clothes from the closet on the furthest corner of the room and placed it on a chair ,beside the tub, which he had dragged from somewhere in the room.

"Nah, I won't faint. I don't usually faint because of blood. Just now was an exception and don't ask me why." The brunette denied with a wave of her hand in front of her face and peeled off the black blazer-like jacket from her torso. "See, nothing happened."

"Just warning, who knows what you're capable of doing after all that show you've put up just now." Reno took the jacket from her offering hand and pulled the transparent, vinyl curtain around the tub. "Take your time, we'll think of everything later." Was his last word before he closed the door behind him and flopped on his bed.

The redhead stared at the white ceiling and groaned as he rested his hands on top of his face. What had he actually picked up this time? Why had he even bothered to check on her, when he first saw her comatose body in Midgar?

He doesn't know a damn thing for sure, except that he wasn't acting like himself today, maybe it was because of his visit to sector seven, after months of avoiding it as Tifa had suggested.

Her eyes were one thing which had certainly gotten his attention now. It really reminded him of Aerith's, the last Cetra who had been spied by him and the other Turks for more than her short life could allow. It was a pool of green, but lighter than the older brunette's dark, hypnotizing orbs.(Not that his damsel in distress' wasn't distracting him enough)

She came from another world? Wasn't that just a little too…fiction? But there were no other possibilities, except that she had actually knocked her head hard and lost most of her memories…but she didn't act like some amnesiac almost-insane-panicky-damsel-in-distress-with-secret-power or anything close to that of a story from some random-romance-fantasy-inducing novels.

Reno finally sprung up and sat straight as he roughly ruffled his fiery red locks with both hands, emitting a low growl of annoyance at the white flag which was swaying deftly in his brain. Too much thinking was never his field of sports, eating was.

And now he got two empty stomachs to fill in.

Reno finally stood up and walked out of the room, trying to ignore the beating sound of water against some naked skin in his bathroom.

Little that he know, that the Turk's wheels of fate had once again taken a big turn.

* * *

"Reno, where should I put my dirty clothes?" The brunette called out while she rolled up the sleeves of the white, oversized shirt that hung around her slim body.

"Hold it first, I'll drop it to the washing machine before we eat." She heard his muffled reply and not a moment later the steam covered, transparent veil which was separating her from the rest of the dimly lit room was yanked away, revealing the lanky redhead. "You look better."

Seira contemplated as she was hoisted up to his arms again and brought out of the room. She gingerly touched her face and frowned. Was she looking that bad before? She hadn't really bothered to check on her appearance before she took a bath, and decided that it was better off for her not knowing.

She was carried to another big room through a doorway which she just realized was lacking a door, beside the redhead's bedroom and placed on a chair in front of a rectangular, cherry wood, dining table. Four chairs, including the one she was sitting at, were set on each side of it. Overall occupying a side of the spacious room, while an open kitchen area, with steel bordered, mahogany cabinets circling the top of the whole U-shaped structure, occupied three fourth of the room.

A black marble surfaced, narrow counter in the middle of the spacious kitchen, probably serving as a breakfast area caught her attention, despite the other expensive looking white stoves, refrigerator and other smaller kitchen counter surrounding it. Each kitchen ware touched with a simple, yet elegant look.

"Gimme your clothes and eat first." Reno's voice brought her back from her observing trance and snapped her attention to the bowls which she didn't realize has been sitting on top of the table for awhile now, visible, white smoke puffing from its unknown content.

The brunette leant forward and peered at the reddish-yellowy content the plastic bowl. "Reno…?" The brunette raised an eyebrow and called out to the redhead, who was uncertainly jabbing at the mini buttons on his washing machine, located on the end of a narrow, visible passageway beside the kitchen. "You eat ramen…instant noodle for dinner?"

"Instant noodle with _egg_."He corrected and walked back to her, after finally managing to make the unfamiliar machine function properly.

"Exactly the same." Seira sighed and mumbled to herself. Exactly how many times should she do this? This was the exact same scenario which had happened not long after her cousin moved in to his current house. Well, the end result wasn't bad, Kei would have dinner in her house every night and his brunch remains as a mystery to her, which she would love to keep it as it is. "It's just the same, Reno. Don't tell me you eat this every day?"

"No, I also order take outs, but since it's late, you'll have to bear with it." He replied defiantly and took a mouthful of the yellow strands of condensed carbohydrate, noodle.

"I wonder how your stomach hasn't had a hole yet." The brunette heaved another sigh and rolled her eyes at the slurping noises that the redhead was deliberately making. Actually, she herself wasn't really in a position to get mad at him, since she also wasn't really a healthy type of person. But what could she do? Nobody could resist junk foods, right. "Stop eating it, Reno! I'll cook something. What do you have in your fridge?"

Reno could only gawk at the teen and let his mouth hang open, noodles which were halfway in his mouth dropped back on his bowl under his chin. "You can cook?"

"Gross, dude, close your mouth. What's so wrong with me cooking?"

"You just don't look like the type of girl who can cook." He answered sheepishly and let out a nervous laugh, receiving an annoyed look from the brunette in front of him.

"You don't have to talk anymore, just show me your fridge." She shook her head and huffed, dramatically.

"Yes, milady." The redhead mock saluted and wiped his mouth with his white shirt's sleeve, before bending down into an almost squatting position beside her chair, showing his back against her. "Put your arms around my neck." He patted his back and crouched backwards, trying to close the little distance left between them.

Seira carefully reached for his neck and reflexively let out string of curses, when Reno suddenly straightened his back, and jerked her thighs up with both of his hands. "Careful!" She smacked his forearms and frowned while her carrier laughed at her choices of colorful words, which he was sure could even put a certain blond pilot into shame.

"Never knew you had it in you!" Reno literally roared out spurts of laughter while he walked to the open kitchen space.

"Shut up." The brunette mumbled before yanking open the refrigerator, with built in dispenser, which she was facing at. The content of the shelves were not really surprising, it consists mostly of different types of beers and some, she managed to recognize as foreign brands of junk foods. "Don't you have anything edible, which is out of the junk food category?" She whined as she rummaged through every corner of the large, modern cooler box and couldn't help but grin when she spotted a round, brown egg, just to see two more beside it.

"There should be some leftovers from my friend's visit a week ago." Reno thought out aloud a he moved closer and let the brunette's eager hand to reach forward.

"Got it." Seira held three eggs and a medium sized container of some cold rice in her hand, while Reno moved one of the stools, from the center counter, in front of the stove. "I need a pan, two plates, cooking oil, salt, pepper, tomato sauce and any other spices that you have"

"You're really cooking?" He asked skeptically as he placed the teen on the black leather seat.

"Ya think?" She shot back and retorted. "Never heard of a phrase 'Don't judge a book from its cover?'"

"Okay, okay, sorry. Just give me some time to find all the things that you just said. What was it again?"

Seira rolled her eyes and sighed for the umpteenth time of the day, as the redhead searched through every cabinet in the kitchen and spot her orders one by one.

How the hell this guy does even managed to live until today, was better kept as a mystery.

* * *

"Dinner's ready!" The brunette called out while she squeezed a bottle of tomato ketchup, spewing its slimy, red content on top of the rice omelet that she had managed to make from the little resources that was provided to her.

"Looking good…" The redhead mumbled as he showed up from the living room and moved the two plates of decent meals on top of the dinning table. "Hmm, really not bad, Seira, this is actually good. When was the last time I ate any homemade food?" Reno managed to say between mouthfuls as he dug on the home cuisine, literally.

"Hey, I'm still here. Remember?" Seira yelled to him, her voice sounding too cheerful, much to her liking. She just knew that Reno could really get some effect out of you. The said man ran to the kitchen and swiftly carried her to the dining table before he continued his appetite.

"Eat slowly or you'll choke, the food won't run away from your mouth, okay." She said in a sing-song style, a smile of satisfaction on her face.

But the warning was too late, as soon as she finished her ranting, the redhead led out a fierce cough, his hand forming a fist, pounding on his chest to let the jammed food down.

"See, what did I told you, go drink some water." Reno had already ran back to the kitchen and chugged a pitcher of water from the fridge, before the brunette was even able to finish her sentence.

The redhead sighed in contempt after the previously full jar was only left with a third of its clear liquid. "Man, I haven't eaten these since ages ago." He said in exaggeration and sat back on his chair, across the brunette.

"You're over reacting. When was the last time you ate a proper meal, what about your family?" Her barrage of question hit the right spot.

He tried to feign ignorance by stuffing more food in his mouth, but when she kept her gaze at him, still waiting for an answer. All he could do was plaster his trademark cocky smirk to his face and ignore the uneasiness in the pit of his stomach that he hadn't felt since a long time, one that he had forgotten how it felt like, since he started his life as a Turk…pity, being pitied by someone. "Family's gone, since I remember. My friends come over once in a while, but… the kitchen always became more of a playground and so, we prefer takeouts."

"I'm sorry." The brunette apologized softly and looked down, focusing her eyes on her food, despite Reno's clear attempt to shrug off any tragedy airs beforehand.

"Don't say sorry, you've done nothing wrong." The Turk wiped his smirk off as he finished his meal and walked over to the kitchen with his plate. "Eat or your food or it'll get cold. You need to rest, kids should sleep before midnight." His voice sounded harsher than what he intended, and he busied himself in the kitchen to ignore the uneasiness which was still lingering in his stomach, partly of guilt this time.

"I'm done, Reno." Came her reply not more than five minutes after his retreat.

The redhead wiped his hands with a piece of cloth, hanging below the sink and carried his guest in his arms, bridal style again. Mentally making sure that he kept a straight face along the supposedly short journey, which felt like ages, to his room.

"Are you mad?" The sudden timid voice caught him unguarded and he couldn't help but slightly jump. She was too caught up with her fingers to notice though, Reno was glad of that.

"No, I'm not." He said nonchalantly and straightened back his face again. But a sudden cry caught him off guard again and he leapt noticeable than before, the brunette ignored it again for a different cause, he was glad for again.

"My phone, it's in my bag?" She cried in alarm and looked around frantically.

"Calm down, you almost gave me a heart attack right there. Black bag, right? I brought it with you." He managed to say after regaining his composure and finally settled the panicky brunette on his bed, before disappearing from the room in another split second.

Seira sat restlessly on the edge of the bed, squeezing and cracking her fingers in her usual nervous habit. She couldn't help the tingling feeling inside her stomach. Maybe this was the only chance that she had to contact her family, and she wouldn't waste it.

"This one?" The redhead showed up with a slim, black, leather bag and handed it to the eager teen.

"Phone, phone, phone." The brunette chimed the electronic gadget's name like a mantra which would help her hands in fishing her phone out of her bag faster.

"Let me hel-" The redhead was roughly cut by Seira's frustrated growl and the rustle of the bag's content being thrown to the bed by the force of gravity.

Yup, she had lost her patience and finally flipped the bag over, a bit too harshly. "There you are!" She couldn't help but squeal in joy at the shining, black, gadget on top of the pile of books and papers. Yup again, she wasn't the neatest person on earth who bothered to organize her bag, but quite annoying when it comes to another person's hygiene.

Reno watched as she expertly flipped open the sleek, black device and pressed the phone to her ears, after pressing, or more like jabbing, some numbers.

"Sorry the number you are calling-" The brunette quickly pressed the red button and redialed the number in the speed dial again. "Sorry the number you are-" The phone snapped shut with a tad bit too much force and she let her head down, enabling her companion to set eyes on her face which was half covered by her long bangs.

The annoying, mechanical voice of the operator was loud and clear enough for the redhead's trained hearing to get it all. He gently patted the soft looking golden brown locks before sitting beside her and placed the spilt content on his bed back to the small bag, which amazingly could fit all of those things, he mused. "C'mon, you need to rest. It's getting late."

Seira stayed still at her position for another minute before Reno huffed in annoyance and snapped his fingers in front of her hair clouded face. "You still there, yo!"

"Uh, yeah, I'll sleep now."The brunette jerked her head up and hurriedly pulled the covers over her head. "Good night."

"Night." Was all she heard before the sound of the door slamming to its frame and a painful silence which followed suit.

Her body shook as she clenched the blankets over her head and slowly tugged it down. A whimper escaped her lips instead of the calming breath that she was trying to take. She swallowed, hard and choked as her throat constricted around the growing lump of distress in it.

The side of her face was suddenly wet and she futilely tried to rub the pooling hot, fresh, tears out of her jade orbs.

"Just cry it out." The masculine, yet gentle voice made her jump and leapt to a sitting position, rubbing more furiously at her eyes to clear her clouded vision.

"R-Reno? My eyes are just itching, I'm not crying." The redhead ignored her as he went to the bathrooms and reappeared with a roll of tissue in his hand.

"Use this." He sat beside her and handed the Kleenex to the girl who was finding it harder to stop the sobs which keep coming instead of her breaths, despite her attempts to stop it

"I-I'm not-" Her feeble attempt of covering herself was roughly cut by a wall of muscles which was suddenly pressed against her face.

"You'll feel better if you let it out. Just ignore and think of me as an oversized pillow." Reno looked away and gently stroked her hair out of her face while the brunette stayed still for awhile before letting her hands crept around his waist.

The redhead wasn't really familiar with comforting people, especially girls, even though everyone thought that he was one of the most professional ladies men in Gaia. Yes, he was and still is, but his jurisdiction was mainly centered in flirting and giving them pleasure, physically, not mentally.

Her sobs which were now more like cries of pain felt like a deep cut in something inside him, and he couldn't help but tighten his embrace, every time her body trembled, and cradle her small body which fits perfectly against him till it tired them both.

The night was going to be longer than what he had expected.


	3. His sins

Her upper and lower eyelids felt like it had been ripped apart, when she opened and peered through an eye. Seira rubbed her moist and sticky face with the back of her hand, before opening both of her eyes fully and took in the view.

"Shit." She cursed at the bold, green letters glaring at her from the little box shaped digital clock on the nightstand beside her head.

"Late again." The brunette said rather too cheerfully, before pushing herself out of the bed, which she didn't realize was way bigger than her usual single bed.

Unfortunately, dawn came late over her and before she knew it, her body was already hanging dangerously from the side of the bed, stable hands and immobilized legs keeping her face out of the cold floor.

Seira winced at the harsh, ice like floor under her hand and snapped her brain to work. It wasn't a dream; she had fell asleep in her class and woken up in a stranger's arms, literally and to make things worse, her legs wouldn't move at all. In conclusion, she doesn't have a single clue of her current location, while her legs were rendered as useless.

"Reno?" She called out and mused on how good her savior's name rolled out of her tongue, earning a spontaneous blush out of her own face.

"You awake-whoa! How did you get there?" The redhead had entered the room and helped her up, without her distracted mind noticing.

"Huh, yeah. Just forgot about my legs and tried to stand up." She stated with a forced laugh and rested her cheeks in her hands, trying to steady the heavy sleep induced feeling of her heavier body weight.

"You sure, your face is all red." Reno felt his own forehead and placed the back of his hand against the teen's forehead. "No fever."

"I'm just still a little bit sleepy."

"You should wash your face then." He gathered and lifted the heavy sleeper in his arms, bridal style, as usual and entered the grand bathroom through the door beside his bed. "I'll take you to my friend's house today, and you're going to the hospital for checkups."

Seira was placed on a chair in front of the sink. Annoyed at how early she had to leave the comfortable mattress despite the only advantage that she had learned when she finally realized of her grave unfortunate situation, no school.

"Your tooth brush is the red one in that glass. Do you usually take a bath in the morning?" The redhead's finger, which was pointing at a short glass beside the basin, brought her half functioning brain's attention back to him. It took her another moment to remember what he was asking and she replied it with all the vigor she could muster at the moment.

"No, this is fine."

"Great! Call me when you're done and we'll eat breakfast before going." The apparent cheerfulness in his voice made her mentally grimace. He was definitely a morning person and asking another hour just to rest her eyes wouldn't seem to work.

"Breakfast?" The brunette inquired and eyed him suspiciously.

"I made some toast, don't gimme that look!" He immediately brought his hands up in defense and grinned nervously.

"Great, it's okay to eat instant noodles once in awhile. But I bet you've had a fair share of what you're supposed to have in your lifetime."

"Can't help it, yo. It's the only thing I can make without burning the whole stove down, tastes good too." Reno reasoned like a kid who was caught in the middle of a sugar high, after his dirty act of stealing a candy, which his mother had hid and Seira couldn't help but chuckle.

"You really remind me of my cousin. He hides his spare keys in the same place and gives me the exact same reasons like you." A small smile passed through her composed facade. _Never fails to cheer me up too. _She added in her mind and let a frown took over at the thought of home.

"He must be a great guy." The redhead's grin was comparable to a Cheshire cat's, completely ignorant of the teen's sudden hard expression. "Just call me when you're done." He exited with a lazy stroll through the door.

"A great guy who had lost his keys more than five times." She mumbled as the door was closed with a silent thud and rested her forehead on the rim of the sink's cool surface.

The deafening silence hung in the air like a cold blanket wrapping around her. At times like this, people who should think twice before they talk, like Reno, would be mostly welcomed. Any sort of distraction would be fine, as long as it was able to stop her from thinking.

Seira finally took in a deep breath and looked in the mirror right in front of her. God, she looked awful. The faint bags below her eyes were certainly getting darker and she just look so pathetic and hopeless, not that she wasn't.

She took the toothbrush in her hands and started to brush her teeth, sideways, while the thought of her family and friends searching for her came up to her mind, certainly not enjoying the feel of the stiff, new toothbrush against her gum. Her mom, she wondered how she would cope with the news of her disappearance, certainly not good.

The brunette washed her mouth after spitting the mint foam residues from her mouth and stared up to the mirror once again.

What will happen next? The thought itself rang in her head and disappeared as fast as it had showed up. Where is she exactly and will she be able to go back home again? Question rose and sunk back to the back of her head, not a single one coming up with a reasonable answer.

Seira lifted the cap of the faucet with a flick of her finger and let the cold water soak her entire hand before splashing it against her face.

The freezing cold water really helped to clear her mind. Her uniform were shabbily folded on top of the towel beside the basin and she couldn't help but sigh.

No wonder Reno's shirt looks like that.

The said man, on the other hand was leading a war in his head. The general argument being of last night's unexpected turn of event, even for him who was famous as _the womanizer_.

He didn't know why, but his body just acted all by itself.

_No, Reno. You've just let yourself single out for a little bit too long. It's time for another woman again. _The little voice at the back of his mind taunted and the redhead growled to himself.

No, it wasn't that. It felt different this time. He wasn't attracted to her in that way, in fact, he almost felt uneasy when he held her last night. It felt like her slim form could break, even under the slightest pressure of his arms.

_Fool, that's impossible, you've thrown all those feelings when you first joined the Turk's._ Reno growled louder this time, ignoring the obvious direction his mind was leading to.

"Reno." The weak voice made him flinch and he couldn't help but rudely barge into his own bathroom, as if his life would end if he didn't make it to the room in time.

"What's with the face?" The brunette asked nonchalantly, her face not betraying any single doubt imprinted in her mind.

"I thought…" Reno started hesitantly, cursing at himself for letting his guard down before straightening himself. "I thought you were crying."

"I've cried enough last night. I thought you knew that better than me." She smiled reassuringly and silently prayed that the redhead would catch on and just leave it be.

"Yeah, but your voice…it's shaking." He added the last part quietly to himself before mentally sighing and walked forward to move her. "Never mind, let's just eat and go."

* * *

The motorcycle's engine reverberated in the empty wasteland, kicking up trails of dust at its wake. Reno rode the sleek, black bike nonchalantly while Seira clung to his shoulder securely, careful not to let the strong wind push her body back, with strands of her hair which were now annoyingly slapping back and forth against her face.

A strong stench of rusting iron wafted through her nostril as they entered the dull looking city that Reno had introduced as Edge.

They hit an alley not far from what looked like the central square of the crowded capital, before the redhead came to a halt in front of a bar.

"Seventh Heaven? That's a cool name." The brunette gazed up at the store's signs, which were located above the entrance and on the door itself.

"My friend runs this place. C'mon, put your arms here." Reno half squatted with his back against the immobilized teen and patted his shoulder after hopping off from his bike.

Seira wrapped and adjusted her arms around his neck, before she was lifted up with ease.

"Yo, Tifa. How's the bar without me?" The redhead greeted cheerfully as he pushed the door open and spotted the barmaid at her usual spot behind the counter.

"It's lacking another too-drunk-to-think spender since last week, Reno. Is that Seira?" A woman in a black vest pushed a strand of her dark brown locks to the back of her ear and walked out of the counter. The barmaid, who she could only presume as Tifa looked stunning, with straight almost raven hair, long legs and perfect curves. The brunette was certainly on the same or taller height as her, but her enticing curves seems to accent it further (especially her racks which she was sure would be quite…distracting even from a girl's point of view).

"Yeah, the one and only." Reno placed the brunette on one of the stools in front of the mahogany counter which was approached by the barmaid.

"Reno told me about you, I'm Tifa, Tifa Lockheart." She introduced herself and stretched her hand out in front of her.

"I'm Seira, Seira Howard. Nice to meet you, and sorry I'll be a trouble for a while." Seira took and shook the older woman's hand sheepishly, taking note that despite her feminine looks, Tifa wore quite a boyish outfit.

The older brunette patted the younger one's hair before she walked to the bottom of the stairs and called out. "Cloud, Reno is here!"

A pair of footsteps and two lighter ones followed from the second floor, and a mess of bright yellow was what she spotted before the handsome features of the man who was called Cloud (What an imaginative name).

All in all, one thing she could only say about the man standing straight and approaching her with his wide strides was that…damn, that guy is beautiful; a narrow face unlike many other boys with a broad, square-like jaw, high cheek bones, thin lips, pale skin and captivating bright, blue eyes which seemed to be staring right into her soul.

"Yo, Cloud, how's life?" Reno's usual greeting snapped the brunette out of her observing trance and she couldn't help but stare when the blond finally reached her place and offered a hand.

"Cloud, Cloud Strife-"

"Chocobo head." The redhead rudely interrupted with a cheeky grin plastered on his face as the offended man glared at him.

"Shut up, Reno. Go to work, I'll handle things here." Cloud growled before the brunette could even make a mental note to ask what a Chocobo is, finally finding the redhead too annoying to ignore.

"Geez, a welcome drink is enough, delivery boy. I'll be back before dark then."

"You're leaving?" Seira looked up worriedly, not too enticed with the idea of being left with someone that she just knew in an unfamiliar setting.

"Even though I call him a Chocobo, he won't bite, Sei." Reno let out his deep, rumbling chuckle and ruffled her hair. "I'll be back before you know it, don't miss me too much, babe." He turned around and exited leisurely, not being able to see the teen's annoyed expression and roll of her eyes.

"Bye uncle Reno." Two voices chirped behind Cloud, one with a higher pitch than the other.

Seira tilted her head to get a proper view to the two kids who had been hiding behind the blond, too distracted with the man who was practically screaming with bishiness all over, to notice when they first came down with the said man.

The small girl, who wasn't even ten, as she had guessed, had the same brown eyes and hair which was braided with a pink ribbon. It was apparent that she wasn't as shy as the other boy, when she approached the older brunette first and introduced herself with a high-pitched yet gentle voice. "Good morning, nee-chan. My name is Marlene Wallace and next to me is Denzel." The spirited youth softly elbowed the older boy, which she noticed had the same hair color like her and a deep blue eyes that could almost be compared to Cloud's.

"Nice to meet you, Marlene, Denzel, I'm Seira Howard." Denzel just nodded and shyly shook her hand after Marlene's cheerful greeting.

"We're going to the hospital then. Marlene, Denzel, go up and study again." Cloud instructed and the children followed eagerly, Marlene replying with a 'Right away' before jumping up the stairs and Denzel following behind with less spirit after a simple nod.

"Sorry for the trouble, Cloud, Tifa." The brunette apologized again and let her face fell down with a deep sigh.

"Listen, darling." Tifa said sternly, gaining immediate attention from the dispirited teen, then continued in a softer tone. "We'll share everything that we know later, but now the most important thing is to heal your legs. Be patient, okay." Burgundy orbs bore into emerald ones, the barmaid spoke like a mother to her child and Seira couldn't help but let out a reassuring smile.

"Thank you, guys. But can I ask one question first?" The brunette asked sheepishly, unable to decide what to look at, Cloud, Tifa, or the wall behind them.

"Go on, we have the whole day." Cloud encouraged this time, uneasy with the teen's troubled look.

"What's a Chocobo?" The brunette asked as if it was the most common thing to ask and the older couple couldn't help but snort in an attempt to hold back their laugh.

"That, I can show you later if you want." The blond offered behind his gloved hands which were covering his mouth, unable to decide to either laugh at the stupidity of the question or feel a little bit sympathy to the poor girl.

While Tifa in the other hand wasn't doing a better job to cover her laughter and was visible chuckling behind her covered mouth. She was glad that the kids had gone up or they would probably comment openly and embarrass the teen. Boy oh boy, she was going to have a harder task to explain everything than she had initially imagined.

* * *

Reno couldn't suppress his grin as his bike came to a screeching halt in front of Seventh Heaven.

Tseng had offered him a full two week paid vacation, as a reward for him who didn't pull any big pranks in the new Turk's office, for the whole 10 days, and partly because he was worried with his subordinate's unusual behaviors. Who knows what the Turk's second in command could do when he lost his only interests and started to move towards another insane-r way to have fun, thus encouraging the organization's leader to make such decision and give Reno a break.

Truth to be told, the redhead was just bored with the other Turks these days. Rude had always remained as passive as always, Elena, who was his daily prank victim had started to learn how to counter and ignore his act while Tseng stayed as stoic as ever.

He also couldn't take out any of his pending stress through any hard missions, since the department itself was lacking some. So, for the last ten days his job was only feigning to do his never ending paperwork…in other words sleep to his heart's content and immediately waking up with a pen in his hand when someone knocks at his door.

It was the beginning of dusk when the redhead entered the bar and greeted the trio who was gathered on one of the tables in the middle of the bar cheerfully. "So, how's the checkup?"

"Nothing's wrong." Cloud said without saving a glance to the newcomer.

"Huh, what do you mean by nothing's wrong?" A frown finally made its way to the redhead's previously happy countenance.

"The doctor said that nothing is wrong with her legs." The blond finally saved a glance to the inpatient Turk, annoyed by the ludicrous verdict and the man who was approaching them with his loud footsteps.

"You mean it just stopped working without a damn reason?"

"Sit down, Reno. We're telling her about our world's history." Tifa finally barked in, trying to calm herself and the redhead's increasing tone which was getting on her nerves. "Where were we just now?" She reverted her attention back to the brunette who was sitting across her. "The fated day…it was just moments before Meteo strikes down to Midgar. Holy came late and did an opposite effect to it than what it was supposed to. We almost lost our hopes when The Lifestream suddenly came gushing out of the planet."

"Saving our asses from immediate destruction, four years ago." The flashy Turk, who had already found a seat on one of the chairs near their table, hacked into the conversation, much to the barmaid's chagrin. "But that was the start of our fall. Without Mako, our life depends with the old, undeveloped, previous resources, steam and coal. The Geostigma pandemic didn't help much too."

"Geostigma?" Seira finally opened her mouth after breaking out of her processing-new-information mind's daze.

"Sephiroth didn't diffuse in The Lifestream after we defeat him." It was Cloud's turn to take over the explanation this time. He was one of the infected and little amounts of people who knew much about the disease after all. "He tainted The Lifestream with Jenova cells and our bodies which were infected with it fought against the foreign substance. Geostigma is born from our own immune systems which tried to get rid of it but instead overcompensates at the incurable contamination."

"So, what's this disease like actually?"

The blond unconsciously brought a hand to his arms, giving it a gentle pat to the previously scar ridden skin. "Black marks on your skin, black pus oozing out of it and pain raiding your system."

And the small gesture didn't go unnoticed by anyone of course. "You-"

"We're still far from finished, can I continue?" Tifa interrupted before the brunette had even finished one word, knowing exactly what she would ask beforehand.

Seira only nodded in response and left her curiosity behind. She knew that she was still an outsider and sometime things are just better left alone.

"2 years after the meteor incident, Kadaj, Yazoo and Loz came out of nowhere and brought chaos to this town. They kidnaped children who were infected with Geostigma and even made the town a battlefield only for one sole reason, to find their mother. In other words, Jenova cells which Shinra had managed to collect from our last battle's location. At the end, Kadaj revived Sephiroth, almost bringing another disaster to the world, but Cloud managed to defeat him for the second time and send him back. Geostigma is cured by the spring which suddenly emerged in the church and life goes on till now."

Silence submerged the whole bar before Reno decided to break the ice.

"2 years gone so fast, huh." He leaned back on his chair and looked up to the ceiling, remembering how the previous two years after Meteor had felt so long for them. Life has moved on pretty much for everyone in the planet, now. The new fuel, oil has also become as useful as Mako was in the past.

"So, what happened to Midgar now?" The brunette asked, deciding to discontinue the uncomfortable silence.

"The ruins that you saw when you came here, that's Midgar." He replied nonchalantly, ignoring the obvious what-the-hell look that she was giving him.

"But I thought you said you found me there?"

"Yup, on top of a pile of junk-"

"RENO!" A sudden yell rang in the room, followed by a loud thud and something heavy falling on the floor. All attention was now on Tifa who had hammered her fist to the table and jerked up without any warning that her chair toppled back. "You went to sector 7 again? How many times should I say that it wasn't your-"

"Tifa!" Cloud shouted warningly, snapping his childhood friend out of her ranting and silencing the room once again. His voice wasn't loud, it still held a tinge of calmness which was always in Cloud's voice. But Tifa knew best that raising his voice that far wasn't one of his favorite to-do lists.

"Oh, yeah, almost forgotten this." The redhead interrupted once again and placed a white tote bag on top of the table. "I bought some clothes for you, you can try it upstairs. Cloud, can you?"

"Hmm." The blond nodded and carried the said girl up in his arms without any further comments.

The fading, heavy, thud of Cloud's boots up the stairs were the only sound in the bar for a while before it stopped and was replaced by a smoother voice. "Tifa, can you help me?"

"What?" The barmaid spat back, annoyance still clear in her voice.

"Can she stay here?" Reno said, softer than he had intended it to be. He almost considered repeating his question, when the other brunette suddenly rained him with torrents of questions, completely forgetting about her previous acts.

"She, you mean Seira? Why? You have to leave for a mission?"

"No, no. It's just that…you know, a guy and a girl of her age living together, isn't the best idea out there. Wonder what people would say." He mumbled the last part to himself, loathing how out of character he felt to care about other's view about him. He had always been the non caring type, too laid back for anyone's liking and enjoys his carefree life.

He doesn't even know what he was talking about now. All he knew was the girl would really ruin his so called normal life if she stayed with him for any longer. His messed up head was already quite jumbled up thanks to her.

"Oh…" She mouthed as realization dawned on her. Tifa could feel a light bulb flickered brightly above her head and if things were really like what she was thinking, some serious steps have to be made. "I know she's such a sweet girl and I would really, really love her to stay but Barret and Yuffie is coming tonight, there won't be any spare rooms for awhile." The brunette paused before adding again. "Why don't you call Rude to your apartment, I'm sure with him around you won't be able to lay a finger on her."

"Right, good idea…" Reno nodded thoughtlessly for awhile, before something struck him odd. "Wait! I never said I wanted to touch her!"

* * *

Cloud stared at the plain hallway wall and strained his hearing to catch on any other interesting discussions from the floor below. A timid voice calling out his name from the room behind him made the blond turn around.

"Cloud?"

"You done?" He turned the door knob and let the door slide ajar just to take a little peak, before pushing it fully open. "That suits perfectly on you."

The brunette, who was clad in a white tank top which was covered by a V-neck shirt and brown fancy looking shorts, shifted uncomfortably and squeezed her fingers restlessly against each other. "Did I say something wrong down there?" She finally opened her mouth after Cloud stopped and stood right in front of her.

"No, there isn't anything wrong with what you've said. Let's go down." The blond attempted to move closer and scoop her up but was gently shoved by the stubborn, younger female, who refused to move.

"What's wrong with him and sector seven?" She asked again, daringly. Be damned with the whole outsider issue that was currently surrounding her, there was a big chance of her going to live with Reno for god knows how long. If he got a problem with something, it would be best if she know now before anything that she said would hurt or even insult him.

Cloud finally sighed after a long staring competition between them and let his gaze fall to the floor before bending down and focusing it on her. "How should I start this…that guy, he works for Shinra as Turks. The Turks is a department for specially trained people who do all the company's dirty works behind the scenes, including recruitment of compatible SOLDIER candidates to assassinations." He breathed in and out audible before continuing. "AVALANCHE's first base was located in the seventh sector and to eliminate us, Shinra told them to wipe out…the entire sector."

"Did he…?" Her words were almost softer than a whisper, but Cloud caught it without effort. His enhanced hearing made it almost impossible to miss anything after all.

The ex-SOLDIER wanabbe nodded curtly. "He pressed the button and collapsed the whole plate. He always acts so laidback, but Tifa recently found out that he often visited the ruins out of guilt.

"But Shinra has changed and done a lot of things to help the world now, right."

A small smile found its way to the stoic man's face at her response. This girl was really something different, her forgiving attitude which somehow didn't scream of naiveness and the emerald orbs just kept reminding him of Aerith. "Yes, they are now one force with the WRO, that's why Tifa got mad with him. It's nothing what you've said. C'mon, let's go down and show him your new clothes." The blond stood up with the brunette in his arms and stopped halfway to the door. "Promise me you won't say anything about this to him, not now at least."

"Promise, but a lecture would certainly find its way later." Seira grinned with a scheming smirk on her face and Cloud couldn't help but blinked incredulously at her.

"Later…when he's ready, okay?" He shook his head and rolled his eyes. He was already thinking back on his words relating her and the deceased innocent looking flower girl.

"How's the clothes?" A cheery voice greeted them as they descended down the stairs.

"It fits perfectly and I want to ask you something."

A deep frown etched its way to the redhead's features while Cloud glared at the teen warningly. "Seira, you promi-"

"How did you know my size?" And her question slipped off her lips as bold as everyone in the room raised an eyebrow.

"Eer, you…you look like you were quite in a mess when I found you…" He started uncertainly, and continued with some weird hand movements which gestured at nothing but helped lessened his anxiety. "I took a little peak to…check if there was any bodily injures on you."

It wasn't actually weird for something like this to come from a Reno and he wasn't usually ashamed of it. But the trio's suspicious stare was really affecting him this time and he couldn't help but defend himself. "Hey, what's with the look? I bet you'll do the same thing if you were me! She was on top of a pile of junk, covered in blood and moving!" He emphasized the last word by pouting and looked away in a childish manner.

"Okay, okay. Forget I've ever asked." The brunette sighed and rolled her eyes at his child-like antics. How old is he actually? She made a mental note to ask someone later and couldn't help but wonder if he was the type of person who looked younger than his real age or vice versa.

"By the way, have you tried asking the Sorcerer?" Tifa suddenly piped in, causing her question to sink slower than usual to the man in his childish resentment.

"The Sorcerer…? Gramps? Why should I ask him…yeah, how could I totally forget about him. He should know about these stuffs." The redhead asked and answered his own questions for awhile, making it look as if he was some mad man fighting with his own mind. "Alright, I'll see him tomorrow. Now let's have dinner!" Reno suddenly cheered as he felt his stomach rumbling and emanating a deep growl.

"We just ate before you came, I'll just warm the leftovers." The barmaid said and ignored his randomness, before going behind the counter and busied herself.

"So, who's this Sorcerer guy?" Seira dared herself to ask after Cloud had finally placed her on the previous chair she had sat on.

"He's someone who can use magic without a materia." The blond was able to answer before Reno had finished opening his mouth to utter a syllable.

"Materia, that small, glowing ball you showed me earlier?"

"Yeah, we're talking of the same thing." The redhead was able to reply first this time. "Have I mentioned that I got a holiday for the next two weeks? Which means you'll have _me_ to accompany you for the whole day." He couldn't help but grin at the recollection of his holiday which starts from tomorrow.

But his obvious happy demeanor went unnoticed by the brunette who was brooding again, face covered by the curtain of her bangs which were brought by gravity as she looked down.

A burden, she had been since the skies of Gaia greeted her view. And not capable of doing anything, not even walk, wasn't helping her inner turmoil at all.

"What's wrong, Sei-" And of course Reno took notice of the subtle change of mood in the air but was immediately distracted by a plate being placed right n front of him.

"Here's your dinner." Tifa sat beside the brunette and gave the feasting redhead a wicked smile before reverting her attention to the girl beside her. "So, Seira, what about your world, what' you life there like? Care to share anything with us."

"The world where I live is called Earth; it's not really different from Gaia, almost the same problems, minus the Lifestream or Mako. I'm an only child for now; my mom is eight months pregnant while my dad manages his own business with a lot of spare times. Kei, a cousin from my mother's side is a third year college student. He helps my father during weekends." A small smile had managed to creep on her face while she told them about her family. Weird, she could never usually shake off a bizarre, unpleasant feeling when she used to tell anything about any of her relatives in the past. But now, it felt so pleasant and just…right. You really never learned someone's value till they were missing, huh.

"What about you? You never tell us about yourself." Reno wiped the corner of his lips with his thumb before continuing on his half empty plate.

"Me? I'm 18 years old, attending my last year of school. Life is just like that, waking up late, going to school, hanging out with the others, not to mention pilling home works and other simple chores, nothing interesting like your life here."

"What about your lover?" The barmaid glanced again at Reno who seemed to stop his motion for awhile when the question was asked.

"Nope, I'm single and enjoying." She answered as fast as the question was asked, as if it was the most obvious thing to say.

"Thanks for the meal. I think it's time to go." Reno announced as he placed a few gills beside the empty plate, stood up and hoisted the brunette up in his arms, a little bit too cheerful suddenly. "Thanks Teef, Cloud. Don't miss me too much." He winked to the couple before walking straight to the exit.

"Thanks Tifa, Cloud and sorry for the trouble, it's nice to meet you all." The brunette bowed her head as low as her position allowed and waved her hand.

"Nice to meet you too and be careful on the road, Reno." Tifa smiled and waved till the couple was gone from the bar and a bike's noisy engine faded on the background.

"I never knew that Barret and Yuffie were coming tonight." The blond who had been leaning against the counter for quite a while said deliberately, a knowing smirk plastered on his pale face.

"You heard us? What about Seira?" His girlfriend gasped and immediately walked towards him, panic clearly written in her posture.

"Nope, she was inside my office, I doubt she heard a thing. What are you planning, Teef?"

The barmaid sighed in relieve and walked away to their previous table. "Don't you think it's time for a change for him? I'm just lending a hand." She said in a singsong voice as she took the dirty plate to the galley behind the bar.

It was Cloud's turn to heave a sigh as he flipped the used chairs on top of the table and helped her clean up. Tifa just never fails to amuse him with her ideas and broad perspective. Let's just see how Reno's case turned out this time.


	4. Feelings

Reno tossed and turned in the little available space of his make-shift bed which consisted of his couch, soft pillow and warm blanket. It wasn't really that uncomfortable for him to sleep in, when his occupation had forced him to rest in various kinds of more unsupportive terrains. But tonight doesn't seem to be one of those sleep-while-you-can nights.

"Fuck, 2 AM and still awake." He muttered grumpily before jerking up into a sitting position.

The redhead sighed as he finally stood up and lazily walked to the kitchen, having enough of staring at the plain ceiling. Another sigh-of contempt this time-escaped his lips when the cool beverage from his fridge slid down his parched throat and left its all too familiar bitter taste on his tongue.

The beige sofa slightly bounced as he flopped back on his current accommodation, a can of cold beer in one hand and a black remote in the other.

Light from the flat TV immediately streamed to the previously dark room, flickering vigorously while its owner kept changing the channel in pure boredom and lack of entertainment.

Reno rolled his head back and for the umpteenth time let his reversed vision fell to the door to his room. He couldn't deny that his eyes had been repeatedly gotten distracted by the dark oak wooden door leading to his own room, where a certain brunette lay still, sleeping safe and sound.

The TV once again went dark with a satisfying beep and a simple click of the remote in his hand. After another moment of rolling around and fruitless effort trying to shut his mind, he took a last swig from the can and left it at the coffee table in front of him.

An extra minute passed and The Turk finally came to a final resort, exercise, as he stood and paced in front of his own room like a stalker who was preparing to reveal himself.

What the hell was wrong with him? _The Reno_ is holding himself back when the old him would usually just barge in and seduce whoever he found interest with. Hell, he was in real need of getting laid and boosting his ego back. But for now, a peep wouldn't hurt, right?

The door opened without a sound as the trained redhead pushed it slightly ajar. A portion of the room came to view along with Seira who was sleeping soundly on one side of the bed, her heaving chest being the only indication of life.

He was almost retreating when something red on top of the nightstand caught his sight and was immediately made as an excuse for him to come in.

Reno inspected the scarlet object afar and turned away when he realized that it was_ just_ the brunette's wallet.

If he remembered it correctly, there had always been a saying that curiosity killed someone...or was it raped the virgin? But he managed to reason once again, a little peek wouldn't hurt anyone, right?

The redhead picked the leather case and almost jumped when something slipped out of it. A photo was caught in between his fingers before the thick paper landed on the floor and a small frown couldn't help but escape when he looked at its content.

It was a picture of Seira, in the middle of a bigger man with similar features as the brunette's, while the older woman on the other side stood with a resembling posture.

There really was nothing wrong with the portrait, nothing wrong except that it felt so unfamiliar to see the teen's smile as bright as a new light bulb which was glaring its light against him.

The troubled Turk decided to slip the photo back and move out before his frown could get any deeper. Something was officially wrong with him now. It wasn't only an unfamiliar feeling which was raking through his mind but it was also messing up with his behaviors.

"Go...away..." A hushed grunt startled him and made him stop dead on his tracks. He turned around just in time to see the brunette's contorted face as she threw her head to her right before tentatively relaxing back to a peaceful sleep.

Was she dreaming?

Reno blinked a few times, amused, before inching back closer to her. A part of her neck, which was usually covered by her curled locks were now exposed to his bare eyes and he could barely outline something which was out of place on the creamy, soft looking skin.

As he trudged closer and slightly bent down, the thin, white, thread-like scar, just below the base of her jaw became even more evident to his trained sight.

A few short moments of curious staring passed when the redhead finally dared to crane his head down and held his breath, afraid to wake her up with his presence at such close distance.

"Kei..." The name that slipped out of her small mouth was barely above a whisper. Reno himself wasn't even sure if his well-trained ears could've caught it if he wasn't at such close proximity or staring straight at her lips like now.

But before another frown could adore his pale features again, the brunette had thrown and shifted herself to lay on her other side.

The redhead staggered backward and almost lost his balance, startled by the sudden movement and innocent touch. Their lips had met for the briefest fraction of a second and he could feel his face flushed as he ran out of the room, not really bothering to stay as discreet as before.

What the hell was wrong with him? It was nothing as intimate or vulgar as what he was used to but his heart was beating uncontrollably, like a middle school teenager who was in the middle of a confession to his first love. And he also knew that this was nothing related to lust, his pants wouldn't be as loose as this if it was.

Reno let out a fierce sigh and shook his head, as if it could clear out all his jumbled up thoughts and feelings, before making his way back to the couch. Wrong would be a major understatement to describe his behavior these days, it was more like fucked up according to him.

Just one single woman-a teenager in fact, who wasn't even qualified to be called a woman in society yet, was making him like this. Something was really wrong with him when a mere brush of her lips could send him to a daze as if they were having sex or something...that too without turning him on.

Oh Gaia, now he was having a boner because of the sex part. He couldn't help but let his mind wonder how her slim body would feel beneath him...or even on top of him.

The currently insomniac and unconsciously love deprived man groaned in annoyance of his wild fantasies and the heat on his lower abdomen that it was causing. He ran a hand through his fierce scarlet locks and finally let out another frustrated sigh before lying on his back.

Nothing was making sense right now. The redhead nestled his head on the soft pillow and draped an arm above his eyes.

He just hoped that the ticking clock which was stuck at the back of his head would calm his _excited _senses down and lull him into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

"Reno...you look like a Panda. What's with the eye bag? Couldn't sleep last night?" Seira asked innocently to the grumpy looking redhead, who was sitting across her and munching a fork full of the French toast that she had made.

Reno dragged his eye level up to her face before replying with an annoyed tone. "Yeah, that's why I woke up late and you had to make us breakfast."

"It isn't that late." The brunette looked through the small door way to the living room and observed the clock right on top of the TV before continuing. "It's still nine. You can sleep again if you want. We're not in any hurry, right." She reasoned with a straight face, trying not to look too hopeful for another period of peaceful slumber that she silently ached for.

Her body had felt even stiffer than what it had felt like before she went to sleep last night, maybe because of the weird dream that she had. She couldn't recall any details of it at the moment her eyes had snapped opened, but one thing that she remembered was someone tailing her and all the crazy running that made her legs drown with acid just at the thought of it.

The redhead, being the jerk that he was, of course always caught on people's real thoughts and showed no sign of hiding it. He let his trademark cocky smirk cross at his lips before replying haughtily. "You've slept too much, that's why you feel tired."

"Sorry-"

"Stop saying sorry, what's with you and apologizing?" A frown immediately replaced his smug grin as he protested with a slam of his fist.

"I'm sor-it's just being a habit since I came here. I've troubled a lot of people after all."

"Okay, it's decided then!" Reno pumped a fist to the air and cheered.

"What?" The brunette asked lazily as she brought another fork of bread up to her lips.

He swallowed hard, making his Adam Apple slightly bobbed at the motion as his eyes followed the innocent deliberate movement for the briefest moment. "We'll go to Edge and shop. Your job today is to fill my empty fridge, since you're the one with mad cooking skills."

"You, young man, exaggerate too much. And besides, you want me to shop? When I can't even stand by myself?"

"Relax, young lady." The redhead slumped on his chair and crossed his arms in front of his chest. "I'll carry you around. You need to clear your head from all this crap you're thinking."

"You seriously will carry me around with all those people staring?" Seira asked incredulously, already feeling the heat rising up to her cheeks at the thought of going through it.

"I'm serious, who gives a shit about what people likes to see." He spat the last part and continued their staring competition that he hadn't realized had went on since they started bickering.

The teen finally felt her gaze faltered and sighed in defeat, almost pouting in the process."You'll never listen to anything I say, is it."

A grin made its way almost immediately after she showed sign of lost. "I'll make sure you'll never regret this."

* * *

The sun was already setting down when the couple decided to end their shopping spree. Reno walked on the empty road's sidewalk with two bags clinging on his wrists and piggy backing Seira who was carrying another smaller bag behind him.

"You okay with all this load, Reno?" The brunette broke the comfortable silence which had lapsed between them after a heated laughing session where Reno did the loudest in.

"No problem." He jerked her up to a safer and comfortable position before adding. "Just be careful not to slip down."

"Why don't you use your bike? Wouldn't it be easier?"

"We went out for a change of environment, right. So, what's the point of rushing? Besides, I don't really like to ride one, I prefer flying a chopper." The redhead said, boastfully.

"You're a pilot? That's cool." Not more than a second after she complimented him, Seira could feel the regret when she saw Reno's cocky smirk that never fails to make her blush.

And Reno wasn't making any effort at hiding it. "That's one of my many irresistible charms. I'll take you next time when I'm free at work."

Another silence followed and it wasn't one of those awkward moments which demanded someone to think of a topic to break the ice. It was a nice, calm moment with only the rhythmic noise of shoes scraping against the ground as a reminder of time.

"Sorry, I've really become a nuisance in your holiday."

The redhead immediately sighed and clicked his tongue in annoyance, as he heard the familiar tone that the voice behind him was using. "Geez, you're still fussing about this?"

"I can't help it, not doing anything stresses me out. And all these things that you bought for me must've cost something, while I can't even help you, let alone pay." Her voice had dropped as words stumbled out of her mouth. Myriads of emotions were swirling in her and she was sure that another blow would certainly break her down. In fact, her eyes were already starting to sting with unwanted moistness.

"You think too much, I'm helping you coz I wanted to. I never told you to pay me back." Reno said harshly at the end, trying to hide his feeling of getting out of character with his starting statement. Oh my, he was starting to act against his usual ethics, again.

"But I can't...I don't know what to do..." Her voice finally cracked.

Reno just kept walking and continued the now uncomfortable silence between them, baffled and unable to think of any comforting words.

It took them both awhile to realize that one of them was crying. Seira felt the sudden wetness on her cheeks and immediately covered her eyes in hope to stop the annoying leakage, while Reno caught on the faint sobs which she couldn't hold in any longer.

"Oi, oi, you crying? Stop that, don't cry, please." The redhead surprised himself by letting a plea escape his lips when he was unable to contort his neck to an extend that allowed him to fully face the teen.

Turks don't plead for anything, they never and shouldn't. It was a usual scene if someone begged _the Reno_ to just shut up and stop pestering them and he didn't show any signs of not liking them but now it was _the Reno_ begging for a girl to stop crying...even he was taken aback by himself.

"E-even I don't w-want to." The said girl stumbled with her tongue, unable to control her constricting throat and trembling body.

"C'mon, Seira, stop. I promise there'll be something you can do." He cooed with a pleading voice, surprising himself again by not hating the action.

"Really?" She managed to whisper and Reno barely caught the simple query which was being drowned by an approaching, noisy truck behind them.

"You can just...you can just..."The redhead hesitantly said and alas, the goddess' blessing wasn't on his side these days. The loud vehicle which was passing cut off his voice with its annoying, loud engine when he was finally able to say it out loud.

"What? Sorry, I didn't get you."

"You can cook!" The redhead looked forward and hid his frown while he didn't bother to cover the obvious irritated tone in his voice.

"Okay then, I'll make something nice today. We've got all the ingredients after all."

"I'll be waiting." He said begrudgingly. It was actually quite a relief that she didn't catch on what he had just said. The more he thought about it, the more absurd and embarrassing it sounded to himself.

...You can just stay beside me and take care of me.

* * *

It took the couple another 20 minutes of walking in awkward conversations before reaching the Turks' apartment and they immediately took turns for a quick shower, Seira first while Reno sorted the groceries and the latter later while the first prepared their meals.

"This looks good." The redhead stared at the freshly made, smoking steak on the plate in his hands and almost drooled, literally. He placed the two plates at haste before returning to the kitchen and rummaging through the fridge and some shelves.

"What are you looking for?" The brunette finally inquired after a long period of observing from her seat in front of the dining table.

"Wait a sec." He replied before returning to the table with two wine glasses, a dark bottle of wine and its corkscrew. "I haven't opened one for awhile."

"Wine? Is there any special occasion today?"

"Nope, just in the mood for one." The redhead said with a grin while the he unscrewed the cork with a satisfying 'pop' sound.

"No, no thanks. I'm not really a fan of wine." Seira interjected right when Reno was pouring her a glass of the dark red liquid.

"What, you serious?" He held the slightly tilted bottle and looked up with an amused face.

"Yes I am, Reno. My parents loved it though and they always forced me to have some." She said and let her face contort with a look of disgust at the memory before picking up the utensils beside her plate. Truth to be told, she had just realized that maybe it was more of her parent's stubborn nature rather than its taste which made her dislike the expensive beverage. She had always been the rebellious type after all.

"Okay then, your lost."Reno sat down and poured himself some wine before picking up his own fork and knife.

Dinner went on in silence for a while, Seira delicately sliced and chewed her food while Reno cut and munched in a rougher manner.

"Hey, I wanna ask you something." The redhead finally opened up his occupied mouth and let the knife held in his hand wave dangerously as he propped his elbow on the table and pointed a lazy hand.

"I'm all ears." The brunette replied without averting attention from the plate in front of her.

"What's with that scar on your neck?"

Seira immediately looked up at the Turk who was still gesturing with his idle hand and a puzzled expression crossed her face before light finally dawned on her. She gathered her curly locks in one hand and pointed at the now exposed barely visible mark. "You mean this? It's nothing, just a scar from the past."

"Saw it accidentally yesterday, what happened?" He watched curiously as his companion shrugged and moved back to her food.

"I can't really remember. I was only around 5 or 6 if I've not mistaken. A mirror shattered beside me and my dad, when we were walking in town and one of it got me." The brunette said casually, focusing her whole attention to the plate and only giving a few glances to check on the man's reaction.

"So...the glass broke without any reason?" Reno was finally able to avert his gaze back to his food, feigning lack of curiosity which was currently all he could think of.

"Yeah, it's okay though. This scar makes me feel lucky. They said it would certainly cost my life if it went a little deeper." A small smile managed to creep up her face while she chewed the red meat a little impatiently.

"Looky who's talking, the girl who had just cried over troubling people and stuffs a few hours ago, never knew you were the optimist type, Seira." Reno scoffed before taking another mouthful of his dinner.

"Well, that's...a different problem." She managed to excuse herself and looked down again to hide the red tint of embarrassment on her face.

"Is it just me or you eat quite a lot for your size?" It took awhile for the teen to comprehend the sudden question which had popped out of nowhere and she couldn't help but show a dumb face as he caught her unguarded.

"I know I eat a lot, it's a thing passed down from my mother's family, high metabolism and all."

"Seriously, people must be jealous with how your body works." He chuckled and added, a little too excited much to his liking.

"Hey, I think you should stop. Your face is getting red." Seira interrupted the glass which was already pressed against her companion's lips as she brought the last carrot from the plate in front of her to her mouth. "And I'm done."

The redhead paused and let out a deep, rumbling laugh before taking another sip. "I won't get drunk from half a bottle of wine if that's what you're saying."

"Whatever." She grumbled and rolled her eyes at his arrogant tone. "Want me to wash the dishes?"

"Nah, don't sweat yourself. You must be tired."

"Haven't even walked all day." She grumbled again. Oh god, she wasn't even PMSing and her moods are swinging like a swing in a park crowded in sugar high children.

"Did you say something?" Reno feigned ignorance as he picked up the plates.

"Nothing, just a little tired." She straightened up and managed to smile tiredly at his retreating back.

The sound of running water and clinking silverwares were the only noises which filled her eardrums for a moment. She let herself relaxed on her chair until a loud yelp and curse jerked her awake.

"Reno, anything wrong?" The brunette called back to the man who had already ducked down and hid himself from her view, opening and closing shelves as if he was searching for something.

"Nothing, nothing's wrong here." He mentally kicked himself when his reply came more suspicious than what he had planned and added. "I'm fine." Which made it sound worst, much to the contrary of his intentions.

"You sure, need a hand there-"

"No, no, I'll be right back." Came his quick answer, followed by rustling and more shelves being opened and closed noisily.

Another five minutes or so passed on in silence, save for some suppressed rustling noises from the kitchen and its hidden owner. Seira rested her cheeks against her sprawled hands on top of the table and stifled a yawn. Being immobile was certainly having more drawbacks than its opposed effects. And snoozing after a meal was something that she certainly quite enjoy despite its definite label of being a negative habit.

"Reno, what are you doing? I'm getting sleepy here." She complained and didn't bother to cover another yawn escaping from her mouth this time.

"Wait a minute." The answer was fast and uncertain, as if secrets would pour out of his open mouth if he left it unlocked for a moment longer than needed. And the brunette was sure this time that he was doing something either dangerous or downright stupid.

"Reno, what are you doing? Just show whatever you're hiding there." The teen called out again, annoyance now clearly written all over her voice and face.

"I'm not hiding anything, something fell and I can't find it again." The redhead sighed and finally stood up before walking out of the kitchen hastily. "Wait here, I need to get something."

"Show me your hand, Reno." She deadpanned and made him stop dead on his tracks, before he could reach the exit doorway.

Reno mentally clicked his tongue and turned around, not forgetting to switch his right hand's position so that it was kept hidden behind his body. "My hand?" He feigned ignorance and extended his other hand to the demanding teen before turning around and making his own way out, but the unusually serious voice cut his path again.

"The other one."

Oh well, Reno slapped his forehead with his good hand before he gave up and walked back. What had he expected, she wasn't that stupid after all and sooner or later he could bet that she would find out.

Seira squinted to the offered hand in front of her. A large gash ran diagonally on its surface and hints of red were still trying to escape out of the open wound, from the blood clothing process. While fresh blood which had found its way out had dried and formed networks like a river's vein on top of his wrinkled palm. "How did you get a cut that big? Take your first aid box and let me fix it." She cringed after turning his hand to check for any other damage and gave a last glance to the injury.

"Okay, okay, as you wish, ma'am." With that said, he was gone and back after not more than a few seconds, a white box clutched against his chest.

"Geez, how did you even get a cut this big?" The brunette asked as she started to treat the man who had dragged a chair and moved closer.

"It's not even a big cut, Seira." He whined and unconsciously moved closer to the warmth which was radiating from the girl who was bent down in front of him.

"It's more than half of your palm, Reno. What's that called if it's not big, a medium cut? Coz it's anything but small to me." The immobilized teen ranted.

"I don't know. I was already holding the plate's pieces when I realized." Reno shrugged and said sheepishly, ignoring the tingling pain from his wounded palm and in concentrated on his current nurse instead.

"Everything has a first time I guess. Here, I'm done." Seira gave a last tug to the bandage to make sure that it wasn't loose and felt her heart skipped a beat when she finally looked up.

Reno was staring at her intently, as if his pale sapphire eyes could devour her and the decreasing space between them didn't go unnoticed by her. "R-Reno, is it too tight?" She dared herself to open her mouth with utmost care so that it didn't brush the other lips which were centimeters away from her own.

"N-no, its okay." The redhead moved back with a burst of realization, immediately taking deep breaths of air which had been cut off from his lungs without his notice and steadying his rapid heart beat. "Sorry, I think it's time to sleep."

"Yeah, today went out quite tiring." The brunette yawned and stretched as if to emphasize her point, while she tried to cool herself down from the previous almost-intimate incident.

"Me too." Was all he said before he awkwardly moved back to her again and carried her to his bed. Reno cursed in his head at how good her skin felt against his own and increased his pace while the said girl tried her best to put her straightest poker face that she could.

She just couldn't relax around him now; her heart was beating as if it was going to explode as they walked closer to their destination and excessive heat was just produced everywhere that she could feel his hard muscles tentatively brushing with her skin.

Both of them parted with their own murmured good nights and the teen felt a twinge of regret when the door closed without a sound behind him. She had been expecting something to happen between them since the previous private space violation between them in the dining room, but she didn't really know if it should be a good or bad thing.

Seira sighed heavily and buried her face against her hands in frustration, shifting uncomfortably on the bed. While the man right outside her door paced furiously in front of his current sleeping quarters.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, fuck." The redhead chose to verbalize his colorful choices of words this time, still remembering to keep a low voice which he was sure only he himself could hear.

The symptoms were getting clearer, every minute he spent with her was turning him soft and the most scaring part was the fact that he was enjoying the moment with great gusto. How many times had he reminded himself not to let this situation come since he joined The Turks? And now after years he was stuck in this dilemma.

Reno groaned and forced himself to sit still for awhile while his hand kneaded the tight frown on his temple. It didn't take him more than a minute to force him in motion again. He walked to the kitchen and rummaged for a while before returning with cans and bottles of alcohol which was dropped on top of the coffee table in front of the couch with a rather loud thud.

He couldn't take anymore thinking of anything involving a brunette.

Screw everything tonight...except her, of course.


	5. Risk

A faint throb in his head brought the redhead back to the realms of reality. He shifted into a more comfortable position and enjoyed his bed which he hadn't remembered being this pleasant since the last time he slept on it. It felt so warm, soft and small?

And then it hit the Turk hard on his now pounding skull. Wasn't he supposed to be on his couch, and what was this warm presence right beside his body?

Reno shot his eyes open and froze as he blinked to adjust his blurred vision, afraid to trigger-or in his case touch anything which may lead to a bigger dilemma to his own self control.

The redhead practically felt his jaw slackened as he realized his own position. One of his arms were wrapped around a brunette's waist while the other acted as her pillow, their legs were tangled and the still sleeping soundly girl's face was pressed against his chest, breathing in rhythm with his heart beat.

His horror grew when he noticed the tent in his pants almost brushing the teen's exposed abdomen while the only partition that separated their bodies were her hands which were awkwardly squished in between her chest and his stomach.

It took him a moment too long to collect his thought and reality snapped him back to Gaia earlier when Seira nuzzled his chest and innocently inched closer in her sleep, searching for the only source of warmth since the covers had been strewed off from their tangled legs.

He immediately jumped up to his feet and groggily moved away till his back collided roughly with the closet behind him, not really caring about rousing the sleeping teen with his panicky movements at the moment. Much to his amazement, the brunette just stirred and turned away, despite the entire ruckus that he had caused.

A sudden force pushed his head down without any warning and the redhead cursed when he felt the dizziness almost forcing him to fall on his knees. Reno tumbled to the bed and groaned as he held his head and glared at the sealed cardboard box which now lay innocently on the floor, instead of being on top of his mahogany closet.

"Reno, what's wrong?" The soft voice made him reel back and immediately regretted the action as his head protested with a sharp sting to his brain.

"Ugh, just a little headache." He grunt and squinted as his vision swam, trying to focus at the concerned, barely awake teen.

"You sure?" Seira hesitantly reached for the redhead's hand which was clutching atop his head, before extracting it back out of sheer embarrassment but Reno caught it midway and ran it along his smooth, fiery scarlet locks.

"I'm okay, see, there isn't any bump anywhere."

For a moment, the brunette's face turned into a mixture of surprise and puzzlement and Reno's own lost face encouraged her to finally speak out. "Why is your head...wet?"

He further furrowed his brows in confusion before something trickled down his cheek and dropped from his chin. The redhead looked down in shock when he saw and smelled the all too familiar metallic, red substance already pooling on his lap and cursed while he walked to the one and only source of his leaking head. "What the fuck is in that box?"

The offending brown box was easily ripped open with one of his hands while the other held still against his leaking head. "Fuck" He cursed again once a part of the box's content came to his view. "Fucking dumbbells."

And then everything went black as fast as the cardboard box had hit him in the head without any warning. His knees buckled and met solid ground, forced down by his own weight. There was no pain and the last thing perceived by his brain was the Seira's shocked voice ringing throughout the room.

"Reno!"

* * *

A sharp pain in his head jolted him awake. Reno groaned as he slowly raised his head, just to find it being hit by a massive headache which immediately stopped his whole body's movement."What the hell happened?" He focused his dimmed vision and realized that he was lying on the floor with a make shift pillow made of his shirt-lodged in between his head and the solid ground.

The redhead grasped the good part of his head to distract the real pain and pushed himself to a sitting position. Blood stained tissues and clothes scattered all around him came to view before he took notice of a brunette leaning on the side of the bed near his long legs.

Her eyes were screwed shut, chest heaving with every deep breaths that she took, while traces of dried blood was still sticking out of the ends of her fingertips.

Was this really happening to him? If yes, may all the goddess bless her, she deserves something more...normal than who he had been so far.

"Reno...do you remember me?" Worried emerald orbs clashed with another pair of guilty, baby blue for a moment.

He immediately turned his eyes away and scrunched his forehead as if in deep thoughts. "Seira...who punched and called her life savior a pervert, right?"

"W-why do you still remember that?" She shrieked in embarrassment while holding back her laughter at the memory.

"How could I forget? It was only three days ago." The redhead joined in the laughter before adding cheerfully.

"Who knows after being hit by 25 plus 20, 10 and 5 kg of weights, two of each which means 120 kg...260 pounds?"

"You think I'll get amnesia just because of that?" He smirked and found his hand ruffling her soft locks. "Sorry, but it takes more than that to take me down."

"Three days...is it? It felt longer than that." Her eyes dropped for a moment before it lit up again with an obvious fake smile. "C'mon get up and get me the first aid box. I'll fix your head properly."

Reno frowned at the sudden tension in the air and lifted her up to the bed. "We're going to The Sorcerer's place and fix you up today. Sorry, we sidetracked yesterday."

It wasn't hard to read the redhead's solemn tone and Seira immediately posed a better reassuring smile, hoping that he would just drop the topic and leave her alone for a while. "Why are you saying sorry to me? I had a lot of fun yesterday too...Now go wash your head and let me fix your head first."

"Yessir!" He mocked salute and picked up the blood stained tissue and clothes from the floor before moving out."

"Oh, and by the way, sorry I used some of your clothes. There wasn't really anything else that I could reach." She said as he was almost out of the door.

"No problem, the laundry will do and I still have tons of spare white shirts in my office." Reno replied as if it was the most normal thing worker's would say and got out of the room without any further delay or chances for curious questions. Well, it was true for him and the other Turks. Spare uniforms were always provided, given that their jobs included nasty fights and blood lost from both the enemy and their side which in most of his case never failed to ruin his uniform.

Meanwhile Reno dwelled on his thoughts again, Seira flopped on her back and sighed tiredly, legs still hanging from the side of the bed. Things were happening too fast for her liking, it would always be a problem with her legs, her world or Reno and his surprises.

She sighed again before closing her eyes and letting the silence which was settling around her lull her to a light sleep, hoping that Reno could take his time and let her rest again.

* * *

"You sure nothing happened?" Reno shouted over his roaring bike and turned his face back as far as his neck allowed him to, ignoring the road in front of him.

"I said nothing, right! Now watch the road!"The brunette screamed in fear rather than cared to make her voice hearable.

The couple was speeding on an empty road except for some big boulders on the side of their paths. But the thought of something suddenly appearing on their tracks and the ludicrous speed Reno was driving in wasn't really a good combination for her heart.

"You sure?" He finally threw his unprotected face and eyes back to the gusting wind after feeling a tight slap against his arm from the teen behind him.

"Yes, you did nothing to me, just fell asleep on the bed and woke me up for a moment last night. What were you even expecting?"Seira sighed and said in exasperation, swearing in her heart that she sound as convincing as she thought she was. Why couldn't he just believe in what she said? Part of it was true...he really woke her up in the middle of the night.

_"Sei."The said teen stirred and groaned as she gained a little aware of her surroundings. What the hell? The brunette thought. It felt as if she had just fallen asleep. How early had Reno decided to wake her up this time? _

_"Five minutes." She bargained and snuggled into the soft pillows beneath her head._

_"Why are you doing this to me?"Seira heard the man, who was much more closer than what she had initially thought, slurred._

_And a "Huh-" was the only sound that could cross her mouth before she let out a yelp when she felt her breast being groped and strong arms encircling her smaller torso._

_"Re-Reno?" Seira was speechless. She didn't know what sort of acrobatics had made her end up in this sort of position. Her mind was still in such a rousing state that keeping up her reflexes took double the usual time and efforts._

_The redhead's strong arms were already squeezing the life out of her. His hands securely entwined in front of her abdomen, one leg bent in between her own while the other rested atop their limbs and squeezed her outer leg._

_"Hmm..." _

_She shuddered as she felt him moan behind her ears and cringed at the distinct smell of alcohol which filled her nostrils almost immediately after it._

_"Hey, are you dru-" The brunette gasped and froze as she felt the man behind her hitched his bent leg higher to her inner thigh and his grip strengthening around her slim waist, pulling her back harder to the muscular chest behind her._

_After some times which had felt like hours, Seira finally managed to relax and just closed her eyes, hoping that the redhead wouldn't try to move any part of his body, which was already crossing intimate borders, again._

And the next thing she knew Reno was already clutching his head on the side of the bed, muttering curses and the rest of the event which happened this morning took place.

"I know I could do better when I' m drunk..." Reno thought out aloud without realizing himself and immediately shut his mouth tight.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing, nothing. Look, we've reached!"The redhead immediately changed the topic and cocked his head to the house which she hadn't noticed had been approaching them.

Different than the buildings in Edge, the house was a normal two storey building, painted pure white with cracks littering its outer wall as evidence of long hard years. A small garden overcrowded with colorful flowers stood out against the dull surrounding like a sore thumb and a dark green bench sat at the porch, just beside the main white door.

Reno parked his bike diagonally in front of the all too ordinary residence's gate and hopped to his feet before unlocking the gate and pushing it open.

"This-" Seira immediately closed her mouth and cleared her throat with a forced cough as she realized that she was still shouting. "I mean, I thought his house would be more like a dark mansion or something more...living up to his name." She stated rather disappointedly while her companion snorted and held his laugh as he carried her on his back and walked through the gates.

"Don't tell me that you've imagined him as an old geezer with long white beard and a pointed hat." He grinned mockingly and finally chuckled in amusement.

"Kind of..." The brunette's murmur didn't go unnoticed by the Turk's trained ears and he let out a full blown laughter as he placed her on the bench and sat himself.

"You got some good imagination there, lady."He managed to say in between laughs.

"Stop laughing, Reno. There's nothing wrong with a creative mind." She shot back and turned her face to the small flowers in front of her, attempting to hide her flushed cheeks. The events last night had even made it hard for her to face him and joke around like what they usually do to lighten the mood, let alone smile or laugh right beside her face.

Oh god, seriously, life had been hard for her these days. What more do you want to add to this mess?

"Okay, okay, sorry, babe. But you and your creative mind never fail to entertain me." The redhead sighed in contempt as he managed to stop his laugh and slumped on his seat. "He'll be more famous as The Sorcerer if he dressed up like that."

"You mean?" She finally looked at him as she managed to pull a straight face while it was Reno's turn to stare at the garden displayed before them.

"Not many people call him that...nah, actually only Tifa does. Out of respect I guess. He was the one who filled us about Geostigma after all. Most people know him as Doctor Rayne who can cure _unique_ diseases in the small clinic behind his house."

"So he became a doctor because of his powers? Isn't that cheating?" She protested.

"Nope, he only uses his power on special cases...in fact, I've never even seen him use his powers." He whined playfully and stood up to reach for the door bell beside the door.

"I guess, mine would be a special case, right? I wonder if he could fix me or not..."The last part came as a whisper to herself but Reno once again caught it in all its glory. Thanks to his Turk training back in the days.

"Who are you and what have you done to Seira?" He asked in a mock serious tone and smirked as he lightened the mood.

"Not in a mood for a joke, Reno." She snorted and chuckled at his failed attempt of a serious voice while trying to keep a straight face to imply her sentence.

"But you laughed, princess." At this point, the couple was already laughing through gritted teeth, trying their best not to break the playful tension in the air and let the inevitable to come. This had been their daily routine to cover up the obvious tension between them and Seira was more than glad to play along as long as it could distract her mind from the uncertain thoughts of her impending fate.

She was stuck in another world without any knowledge or resources to take care of herself, what else could she do accept mull and ponder at what would become of her? Nothing, not with a pair of paralyzed legs and almost non-existence fighting skills, she couldn't do anything at the moment and it was killing her.

"Okay then. The princess needs to get her treatment ASAP. So stop fooling around and introduce me to the doctor!" The brunette ordered playfully as she responded to her new nickname.

And Reno caught her off guard as he kneeled down on one leg and took her hand in his bigger one. "Your wish is my command, my princess."

Seira's eyes went wide and she felt her jaw dropped open as he planted a kiss on the back of her hand, like a gentlemen who was introducing himself. She almost felt dizzy as excessive heat rose to her face and her heart beat a little too hard for her liking.

"Stop flirting and ring the bell!" The brunette snatched her hand away from his strong yet gentle grip and scolded as best as she could. She dropped her elbow on her knees and buried the lower part of her face against her hands to hide her crimson tinted cheeks which she was sure could beat Reno's scarlet locks.

The redhead just chuckled at his companion's flustered reaction as he stood up and dusted his pants. It was like finding a new toy, apart from the fact that the brunette was making him feel more, than a mere toy could.

Being a Turk these days wasn't half as fun as it was back then. Elena had learned on how to counter and ignore his pranks, all of the jobs he had been assigned to, were always either dull or boring missions which didn't give him any action or even more piles of paperwork. And hitting on random girls didn't seem as fun as it used to be.

He knew that it was wrong to say this, but things were a little bit much better when Midgar was still there and Shinra was still a whole company. Everything started going downhill since he pushed the wrong button, literally.

"Reno, no one's inside, stop pressing the bell!" The brunette's scolding snapped him back and made him realize that he had been rapping the bell's poor switch for a whole minute without stop. Old habit never dies, huh.

"Geez, where's that guy? Why is he always late when I really need him and always on time when I'm not? He told us to be there at 2 and now it's almost 2:30" Reno took a peak at the watch on his left wrist before desperately trying to open the mahogany door, which much to his astonishment opened without a protest.

"Sorry I'm late Reno, you came quite on time today." The couple immediately whipped their faces to the direction of the voice.

Seira could swear that for a moment the middle aged man was staring at her with shock written all over his face, then it was lost in a blink of an eye and he was already facing away, approaching Reno who was still standing by the door.

The doctor had raven hair, speckled with random white strands on several spots. And he was smartly dressed unlike her messy companion. White polo shirt neatly tucked in his black trousers and a pair of matching black leather shoes.

"Took you long enough, gramps, but it's already open, see." Reno declared lazily and pushed the door open in further demonstration.

"What? You picked on my door?" The older male accused the younger one with a frown etched on his wrinkled temple, causing the latter to quickly come to his defense.

"Why would I? I bet you left it open."This time, it was the redhead's turn to frown before the gears in his mind seemed to work.

"Impossible, I'm certain that I've-" He stopped at the sight of Reno in Turk mode, his posture slightly straightened without its lazy ambiance, eyes set straight through the open doors and electro-Mag rod or what he usually called his baby EMR ready in his hands, seeming to appear out of nowhere.

"You two wait here. I'm going in." No one commented at this, they all knew that it was more of an order than a request.

"Be careful, okay." The brunette managed to say before he went inside and she received a small nod as an indication that she was heard and not more than that, not even a glance.

"You...Are you Seira?" Doctor Rayne snapped her out of the trance which she herself didn't realize had been in, before sitting beside her.

"Huh, yes I am. Nice to meet you, doctor Rayne." She stretched her hand and posed a smile politely, feigning ignorance at the older man's scrutinizing stare on her.

"A-as you know already, I'm doctor Rayne and I'll try my best to heal you." He finally took her hand with his shaking one after another moment of more staring.

"Umm, is something wrong, doctor?"

"Sorry, I must be staring at you." The intelligent looking man looked down and sighed. "Nothing's wrong...you just look like someone I know."

"He's gone!" Reno's whining broke the short awkward silence between them and not more than a few seconds Reno had reappeared with his usual behavior. "No one's inside, but your store room-I mean archive room's door is open."

"Glad to hear that, I don't want a brute like you fighting in my house." Doctor Rayne muttered while he stood up and walked inside.

"What did you say?" The said man feigned ignorance and asked deliberately.

"Nothing, bring her to the clinic. I'll check if something's missing." They heard him shout from the house and Seira quietly chuckled at the exchange.

* * *

Seira sat on top of a white examination bed, chewing on her lower lip and tapping at the not-so-soft surface with her fingers. While Reno, who was sitting on the doctor's oak desk across the cot walked to her and pressed his hand on top of the brunette's drumming hand. "Calm down, princess. Everything's gonna be alright."

The sudden approach seem to snap the anxious teen out of her reverie and her first response was to pull her hand back from her companion and back to the confines of her own warmth in embarrassment. "I know, I know. I'm going to be alright. Now stop calling me that!" She added playfully at the end and continued to fiddle with her fingers after a few silent seconds.

A really bad habit, eh. Reno observed as she twisted and cracked every part of her hands in every possible angle. Fascinated by how someone could keep a straight face despite her obvious body language which was screaming of insecurity.

"Nothing was lost. They just messed up my archive room." The Sorcerer appeared and put on his white lab coat which was hanged behind the door that he had just entered from. "Now back to business. I heard you've tried every test on the hospital's list?" He sat on the executive, comfortable looking leather chair behind his desk and entwined his hands on top of the desk, as if in deep thoughts.

"Yup, she went with Cloud and they said nothing was wrong." Reno was able to reply before the real patient could even open her mouth.

"Okay, then normal medication would certainly not work here." The smart looking doctor stood up and walked to the obviously nervous brunette while rubbing his hands together. "Lie down and stretch your leg. Relax and don't try to move it, okay." He instructed as the redhead helped her legs up and waited in anticipation beside the older man.

Once everything was ready, Doctor Rayne placed both of his hands on top of the paralyzed legs, palms facing down and closed his eyes in concentration.

Reno's eyes and mouth widened in an idiotic expression while Seira's jaw dropped open in fascination as soon as a greenish-blue, almost turquoise hue started to engulf The Sorcerer's hands. "Cool, gramps. This is actually the first time I've seen something like this, without any materias equipped!" The Turk said as he watched him open his eyes and the blue light faded into thin air.

"I know the problem. Both of you wait here." The doctor said with a slight frown and immediately went out before anyone could further comment.

"Nice, he seems quite confident, doesn't he?"

"Reno!" Seira launched herself and wrapped her arms around his neck in a tight hug before the redhead could even turn his head to her.

"Whoa, slow down. We don't want you adding any more damage to that head and geeky imagination of yours." Reno balanced himself and caught the teen, who already had half of her body out of the bed.

Trust this silly man to crack a joke in whatever situation he could be in. Seira gave him a tight slap on his arms and chuckled before mumbling against his chest. "Thank you very much, for bringing me here, Reno."

He let out a small smile at the happiness in her voice and ruffled the golden-brown locks in front of him. "No problem, you deserve it."

"Before we proceed, I would like to-" Doctor Rayne walked halfway to his clinic before pausing at the sight in front of him and timidly retreated back. "Sorry for disturbing anything, I'll be back in another thirty minutes."

And it took another second for the brunette to process what was happening before she pushed herself back to the cot and raised both her hands in denial. "N-no, no, no, no! This isn't what you were thinking. Come back here, doctor."

The older man came back and thought he saw a look of disappointment in Reno's face as he leaned back on his comfy looking chair. "Okay then, I'll explain about your conditions first. Your leg's nerves are paralyzed. Remember, nerves, not your actual legs. That's why normal means couldn't find out what was wrong...actually this is also my first time getting a case of this sort. I've only read it in one of the old books in my archive room. It's an ancient curse."

"Ancient...curse?" Seira repeated the doctor's words in confusion and unconsciously rubbed her paralyzed limbs.

"You mean someone cursed her? Why would they do that?" Reno frowned as he crossed his arms in front of his chest and sat himself on top of the hard cot.

"That comes later, now on to the treatment. It won't be that hard for me to do it even if it's my first time, but the after effect is what I'm afraid of. Are you ready for that, Seira?"

The only female in the small clinic looked down and stared at her tightly entwined hands before looking up with a determined look on her face. "I'll do it. Even if it'll risk my life, I'll still do it."

Reno grinned to the doctor with an I-know-she'll-say-that look while the older man just shook his head and suppressed a smile. "Good, that was a nice answer. But I won't let you risk your life."

"Everything is settled then, what are we waiting for!" The Turk punched a fist to the air and whooped in excitement before her was harshly let down by the older man.

"Out, Reno."

"Wha-"

"You'll just disturb my concentration. If you don't want this to fail, you better get out and wait. The door's right there." He calmly pointed at the door behind him and silenced the younger boy's objection with a stern look.

"But-" The younger male attempted a last protest and finally dragged himself out when he saw gramp's unwavering look.

Seira and Doctor Rayne both winced as the redhead slammed the door shut behind him and shook their heads at his antics. "Now that the disturbance is gone, let's start the treatment." He walked to the teen with an old book that she hadn't realize had been brought back with him.

The raven haired doctor stood in front of the cot after instructing her to lie down and browsed through the aged, yellow pages. "Relax and don't try to move your legs again, alright." He let his right hand hovered on top of her legs while the other held the open book. The bluish light came again but this time, black vapor started to form as the older man's lips parted to form incomprehensible words to her ears.

She didn't know why, but the black vapors which gathered from her legs and disappeared into thin air sent shivers through her whole body. It just wasn't the best thing that she had seen in her life.

The ominous looking smog had disappeared before she knew it and so does the comforting blue light on top of her legs. The Sorcerer sighed heavily before concluding. "It's done. That's all I can do for now." He drifted back to his seat and carefully placed the old book inside one of his oak table's drawer.

"But it's still not moving." The brunette complained as she tried to move her unresponsive legs again.

"You'll have to wait for the after effects before you can walk again." He declared and watched as she pouted and sighed in disappointment.

Well, she had waited since day one of arriving here. What's more to lose in a little bit more? "Can I ask you something, doctor?" Seira forced her lips to move and begrudgingly let the words slip from it.

"Of course, as long as I am able to answer the question itself."

"Earlier...you said that I look like someone you know. May I know who?" She asked timidly and finally raised her head to look up at the older man's slightly shocked and hurt expression.

Apparently, Seira had caught him off guard by asking the unexpected question out of nowhere. Doctor Rayne sighed and fixed his unsettled face before starting. "About that...I was just thinking that you really look like my son, actually more like my wife."

"Your wife, is she...?"

"She's gone, long time back...It's really an old story."

"Sorry for asking then, what about your son?"

"He's...gone too."

"Sorry, sorry! I'll just keep my mouth shut, then." She immediately apologized and looked down again, feeling as if she had crossed someone's private boundaries.

"Well, he's not actually dead. Just disappeared and haven't showed up for 20 years...or was it more? Your eyes and hair have the exact same color and I was just a bit surprised earlier. Green eyes are quite rare in these parts of place after all." He stood up and walked to her just to feel her soft brown locks under his fingers, before retreating back to open the door and call Reno back in.

The redhead stumbled in as the door was opened without a warning. "So...she can walk now?" He straightened himself and grinned innocently under the other two pairs of glaring eyes.

"Reno! Were you eavesdropping?" Seira hissed at the man who was scratching at the back of his head as if he was oblivious on what she was saying.

"We'll talk later about this." The elder male cut in to the couple's fight before sitting back on his chair and started somberly. "On to the side effects that I've told you earlier, your legs are now only clear of half the original curse planted in it. The other half would no doubt neutralize itself but the dangerous part is this high fever when your antibody will fight with any remaining residues."

"A fever? I don't think a fever can be that life threatening, gramps." The younger male remarked from his spot beside the brunette.

"It's a high fever, not a normal fever, Reno. Late treatment will lead to complications which can even post permanent damage to her legs or any other organs."

"That...sounds like something. So how is this going to roll?" Reno finally kept his own witty comments and for once, listened in full attention.

"Since we don't know when this will be happening. Seira, you should tell Reno whenever you're feeling unwell, even if you think it's only your feeling. And then Reno, you should immediately bring her to me."

"Here? But it even takes more than half an hour to reach here." The Turk pointed out and received a curt nod from the other male.

"You got a point there, it'll be a little too late if we meet up here."

"Geez, gramps, can't you be any more blunt?" Reno replied sarcastically as The Sorcerer ignored him and stayed deep in his thoughts.

"What about you stay here, Seira?" He finally blurted out, receiving comical wide eyes and protests from the couple.

"B-but, you got back problems, gramps. You won't be able to carry her around."

"Who said I'll carry her around? She can use the wheel chair." He countered the panicking redhead with ease.

Why was he panicking you asked? The Turk himself didn't know why. But the current idea of leaving the brunette here and going home alone was just too unpleasant at the moment. "But-"

"Thanks for the offer, doc. But no, I don't want to be a nuisance for anyone else, especially someone as busy as an experienced doctor. Besides, I've gotten rather used to living with Reno and I'm not sure if that guy can survive without me taking care of him." She cut into the childish bickering, declining the offer as politely as possible and added a joke at the end.

She just hoped her smile wasn't that obvious to the other two males. It's not like Reno's resistance to let her live with anyone else was making her go flowery inside her heart...actually it kind of make her happy that she felt like jumping and grinning like an idiot, if only her condition allowed her to.

"Are you indirectly saying that I'm old? I'm not even 60."

"Yes you are. You're almost 59 this year, remember." Reno snorted and silently thanked whatever deity that existed for Seira's refusal. For a moment, he really thought that she was going to leave him and accept the offer.

"Okay, okay. I can't force you if you've decided yourself. Then, what about meeting somewhere between our place?"

"What about Seventh Heaven? I'm sure Tifa can help too."

"It's decided then. I wonder why your brain works fast today, Reno."

"Of course it works right. He just got hit by 260 pounds of weights, dead on the head." The brunette chuckled despite being glared at her companion and almost couldn't suppressed a louder laugh when she saw the doctor's reaction.

"Oh, that explains-wait, what did you say? Why didn't you tell me earlier, Reno?" He yelled as he dragged the redhead by the ears to one of the chairs in front of his desk. "You got a doctor right in front of you and you didn't even bother to check yourself? And why is your hand bandaged this time? Now, don't you try run away, you won't go anywhere till I say you're okay." The older man yelled and ranted about kid these days and Reno being Reno, as he collected his equipments from his drawer, while Reno slapped his forehead, cursing at his luck and a particular giggling woman behind his back.

* * *

"You certainly owe me one, Seira. I just got an entire life's worth lecture because of you." Reno whined to the brunette who was hiked on his back, while the said girl just giggled throughout their short journey to his bike.

"Sorry, sorry. I never knew he could keep on for almost 2 hours. Besides, I know you won't learn your lesson if it didn't come to this and your wounds were also treated by a professional." The teen replied all too cheerfully and squeaked when Reno almost dropped her on the two-wheeled vehicle's leather seat.

"Geez, are you even sorry?" He bent down to her eye level and stared with an annoyed expression-similar to a small kid's fuming to her mom for not buying him a bar of chocolate.

Seira tried to stifle a laugh but failed and found herself holding her sides which were starting to hurt again due to excess of laughter. Much to Reno's chagrin, hearing her laugh and seeing her cheerful face tugged the corner of his lips up and forced a small smile, despite the serious face that he was trying to attain.

"Of course I am." She managed to say between giggles. "What about your choice for dinner tonight. Even take outs are okay."

"I got a better idea. You cook another plate tonight and I'm inviting one of my friends."

"Deal." The brunette stretched her hand out and let her companion shook it before he moved away and threw his legs to straddle his motorcycle. "Who's coming anyway?"

"My partner, one of the best pals I can find." He replied without looking back as he ignited his newest Hardy-Daytona's engine.

"He must be a good guy then, keeping up with you isn't any easy job." She teased and chuckled as she wrapped her arms around his waist and readied herself for one of Reno's hell ride.

"You better save your imagination later, don't want to disappoint you." The redhead teased back and adjusted her hands against his abdomen, just to get a feel of her soft skin against his own bigger ones.

"Drop the imagination topic, will you!" Was the last thing she was able to shot back, before The Turk accelerated to the empty road and let the engine's noise drown his victorious laugh.

* * *

Doctor Rayne sighed and immediately sunk on his couch as he heard the hearty couple left the vicinity. Today had turned out to be full of surprises. He hadn't expected a girl who he was sure would look like his son's daughter if he was still here or encounter such a curse on the same young girl.

He was sure that there were now lesser people who knew about the curse than his own fingers and yet, why her?

The so called Sorcerer sighed again-in exasperation-and finally let out a name which he hadn't allowed himself speak in years. "Kyle..."


	6. Turks

Seira was already sitting and waiting on one of the chairs by the dining table, when the doorbell buzzed annoyingly.

"Coming!" Reno called out from the kitchen and managed to place all three sets of dishes on top of the cherry wood table at once before jogging out to fetch the door.

The brunette couldn't help but feel excited to meet the redhead's partner, who she assumed would be a Turk too. And Reno's description of someone who 'looked like a bouncer' wasn't helping at all.

"Yo, pal. How's work without me?"The redhead greeted cheerfully as he opened the door and immediately recognized his stoic partner.

"Good." Came the one word reply from Rude who silently walked in as Reno stepped aside to give him entry before locking the door behind him.

"Aaw, I told you not to miss me too much, right."

She couldn't help but chuckle at the small exchange that was coming from the main entrance and almost gawked at how accurate Reno's description was, about the man who had just stepped in to her view with the said redhead in tow.

The bald man was certainly bigger and buffer than Reno who now stood beside him. Multiple earrings stood out after his clean shaved head and his skin was of a darker shade too. An intimidating looking bouncer would really suit his appearance, while his weirdly shaped goatee and dark shades weren't helping at all.

"Rude, this is Seira and Seira, this is Rude." Reno rudely interrupted their short lived staring match and moved in between them.

It wasn't after the bald Turk was pushed to his own seat by his partner, that Seira could offer a hand and introduce herself properly. "Nice to meet you, Rude." She received a small nod and handshake from the man who was wearing what she recognized to be similar attire with Reno's, plus a tie and a smarter appearance.

"Okay then, enough with the introductions. Let's eat, I'm starving here." The redhead interrupted again with the loud noise of his utensils clattering against each other as he picked it up in his hands.

"C'mon, when are you not hungry, Reno?" Seira scoffed and rolled her eyes at his rude behavior.

"Says the skinny princess, who eats as much as me." He flashed his trademark, cocky smirk before he started to take large spoons of his meal to his mouth.

"Stop calling me that...why not sexy or slim?" The brunette added the last part more to herself. But Reno caught on, much to her chagrin and decided to have a little fun over her annoyance.

"You, sexy?" He snorted in amusement as he continued his teasing. "You gotta be kidding me, you're still a kid!"

"I'm not a kid anymore. For god's sake I'm almost 19! So what do you think, Rude? "She turned her head and changed the topic to the quiet guest who had started eating without her notice.

Rude choked and hacked as he was caught off guard at the sudden question directed to him. He cleared his throat and gave the teen a puzzled look, or what resembled one. Who knows what was going on the other side of his shades.

"I mean the food." She quickly corrected and felt her face flush in embarrassment of the misinterpretation between them.

"The last time I ate proper homemade food was in Seventh Heaven about three month ago." The bald Turk surprised the brunette by suddenly opening his mouth and letting out his deep voice for the first time near her.

"Hey, don't compare my food with Tifa's. She's in a completely different level from me." Seira whined as she continued to consume her meal in the most lady-like manner that she could.

"It's not bad..." Came the follow-up reply from the silent guest and she couldn't help but smile at the small compliment.

"Thanks, Rude-"

"Why don't you admit it's delicious, Rude? Ain't you jealous of me, I can eat this kind of food everyday." Reno interrupted again, with mouthfuls of rice and curry and Seira could bet that the redhead couldn't just shut his mouth for more than a minute even if his mouth was gagged or stuffed with anything.

"You mean you're planning to make me live here forever?" She retorted impulsively and immediately regretted her stupid mouth when she saw Reno's somewhat shocked and pained face.

"I mean-" The speechless man tried to defend himself but almost cried out in relief when the doorbell buzzed and distracted everyone's attention from his soon-to-be nonsensical response. "The hell, I don't think I ordered something." He hastily stood up and walked away, trying to distract his mind which was currently scolding himself for bringing up the topic which he had tried to shun since they had met.

She had a loving family who were certainly waiting for her back home. People who would actually grieve if she was gone, so why would she want to stick around him forever, in a world that she hadn't even knew existed four days ago?

The loud buzzing noise snapped him out of his thoughts and he frowned at the impatient visitor behind the mahogany door before pulling it open, wide enough for his head to peak out. "Laney? What are you doing here?" Reno tore the door further from its frame to get a clearer view of his blonde colleague in front of him.

"Couldn't find Rude in his apartment...so I guessed that he must be here, right?" She stepped in fluidly and managed to enter pass him without letting the redhead utter a word of protest.

"Oi, you're drunk, is it?" He crossed his arms across his chest and leaned on the wall beside him as he watched the dazed blonde's back, sashaying forward to his living room. There wasn't any need to watch her crooked walk to know that she had had a little too much off her limit bar-the distinct smell of alcohol which greeted him as soon as the blonde first showed up was enough prove.

"Not really..." She stopped and managed to answer before treading forward. "Maybe a little."

"Heya, Rude!" Elena slurred a little too loud and high pitched for everyone in the room, including herself and immediately sobered up as she spotted the new teen sitting across the silent Turk. "And you must be Seira, right? I'm Elena, nice to meet you."

The said teen eyed the unexpected petite, blonde guest, who was also wearing a slightly rumpled but still complete Turk uniform and finally took the offered hand in front of her. "Seira Howard, nice to meet you too."

The one and only female Turk's mind reeled at the familiar name but immediately shrugged it off as she realized that her brain wasn't in a right state to be able to recall anything which needs any thinking for more than 10 seconds. "You look cuter than what I'd imagined. No wonder Reno was so caught-"

"What the hell's wrong with you today?"

She had sat herself down at the empty chair across of Rude when Reno stopped her running mouth from spilling anything which she knew wouldn't help the mood. "Hmm? Nothing. And by the way, what are you guys eating? It looks nice."

"No food for-"

"There's still some more in the kitchen. You just need to heat it if you want." Seira shushed his foul mouth and offered in exchange. She didn't really know if the woman was a near acquaintance of the other two Turks, but Reno letting her in would certainly mean that they're at least friends, right. Besides, even she could see that the woman was tipsy for a reason.

"Nah, no need, I just swung by Seventh Heaven. Another bite from Rude or Reno's plate would be enough." The blonde replied with a reassuring smile and rested her chin against both of her propped hands.

"Don't even think about it, Laney." The redhead warned before he continued at his meal.

Elena stayed silent for awhile, staring blankly into space. And dinner went on in silence, save for the occasional clattering of steel and ceramic tableware (Courtesy of Reno).

"Is it nice...not being able to walk?" The blonde suddenly muttered, eyes still glazed over as if she hadn't realized that her own mouth had moved at her own accord.

"Elena!" The loudest Turk warned and stood a little too fast, tipping his chair back in the process.

"That's rude for Seira." Rude chimed behind, immediately gaining attention from the whole room who had almost forgotten about his presence.

"She's been trying her best to find a cure and you're asking as if she was on a vacation!" Reno scolded and felt his rising voice rose higher than he had first intended.

"S-sorry, I didn't mean it that way!" Her dazed, brown orbs were finally set on the emerald beside her. She apologized profusely and mentally slapped herself as she tried to straighten up her messed up mind.

"It's okay, Elena. No harm done." The brunette said gently, calming the trio with a reassuring smile before continuing. "I'm just not used to living without using my legs, it actually gets kind of annoying when you can't do quite a lot of small things that you usually do yourself. You can talk to me if you have something in your mind."

"Sei..." Elena whined and jumped forward to hug the taller teen. Reno and Rude immediately tensed, ready to move whenever the tipsy Turk was showing any signs of danger.

The Turks consisted of people who were trained to have an equivalent strength of a SOLDIER without any internal enhancement like Mako surgeries. And an alcohol induced personnel, or one who couldn't make a rational decision were just as dangerous as a berserk triggered fiend. Reno and Rude knew them best from their past experiences, the first being a regular as the mad Turk and the latter a regular in getting bashed by said dipsomaniac.

"You're such a nice girl, Seira. Just like Tifa. Both of you always take care of others before yourselves." The blonde sighed and gently patted the other girl's back, before her hand balled into a fist till her knuckles went white.

"Elena?"

"Definitely the opposite of Tseng that fool, shouting at me just because I said he worked too much."

"Ha! So that's the reason you were searching for Rude, to have a little heart to heart." Reno couldn't help but tease even though he was still cautious with the current situation at hand.

"Imagine! For four straight days he didn't come home, tonight will be the fifth. It's always work, work and work going around his head!" She ranted and pounded a fist on the dinner table, rattling it with brute force and showing no sign of releasing Seira out of her encircling arms.

"Calm down, Laney." The redhead tensed again, finally acknowledging the rookie seriously.

Seira hugged her back with equal force instead of struggling like what Reno had feared she would do and trigger more anger from Elena. "Everything's going to be fine, Elena...I bet Tseng is working his ass off for you. I don't think anyone in the world would rather work than be with someone they love."

"Sei..." The blonde finally released her grip to see the brunette's comforting smile and managed a weaker one despite her scrunched face and misty eyes. "I'm really sorry for what I said earlier. I was just thinking that Tseng would pamper and carry me around like what Reno had been doing to you if I was in your position."

"Wha-" Was the only word that slipped to her mouth as Seira felt the heat rose up to her face and frantically waved her hand in denial, while Reno couldn't help but smirk at her usual reaction. "N-n-no! There's definitely nothing like that between me and Re-" The doorbell buzzed again, stopping the brunette's stumbling tongue this time.

"Geez, about damn time for another guest, is it?" The redhead scoffed as he moved away from the crowded table and scratched at the back of his head in annoyance. Why couldn't everyone just let him finish the last bites of his dinner without making him walk around?

He didn't even care to confirm the identity of his unwanted guest this time before yanking the door open and was more than ready to scowl behind the approaching mahogany portal against the harsh world-excluding the chances that his unwanted guest could be another man in black suit in search of his short tempered, blond princess.

And there the Wutaian man stood in all his glory, with his usual stuck up posture in front of his door. His feet shoulder-width apart, hands on his back, eyes focused to the front and silky raven tresses flowed like a short river on his back.

"Tse-director?" Reno couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at the distressed looking, high-and-mighty Turks' leader.

"Rude wasn't in his apartment. So I guess he might be here...with Elena." The raven haired Turk finally averted his straight gaze from his second-in-commands' growing smirk.

"So, you came to pick Elena? You'd officially pissed her off this time, director." His subordinate side stepped with ease to grant him access to enter in but Tseng couldn't help but act cautious as he moved forward. Reno's trademark, cocky smirk was never equivalent to any good sign for him, after all.

The infamous Turks' leader instinctively widened his steps, after catching a glimpse of short blond locks as he approached the dining area and silently walked pass the living room.

The bald, brunette and blonde trio stared at the not-so-expected guest on different interest.

Rude reverted his gaze back to his food in a this-is-going-to-be-bad-don't-involve-yourself manner, Seira was as lost as ever while the other female behind her was glaring daggers, while trying not to jump in joy at the sight of her prince charming on a not-so-white horse.

"E-" Tseng stopped at the sight of Reno who was suddenly in front of him and obstructing his view again.

"This is the first time you guys met, right. Seira, this is Tseng and Tseng this is Seira." The redhead introduced them innocently, totally unaware (?) of the mental glares sent from both sides.

Couldn't he pick any better time? Seira panicked as she tried to move away from Elena's glare which feels like a laser beam targeted at the tilak in the middle of the Asian looking man's forehead. "Hello...nice to meet you, Tseng." The brunette awkwardly took the offered hand in front of her and glanced towards the other side for any help, just to find Rude busy staring down at his plate.

"What are you doing here?" Everyone could practically hear the venom dripping from the blonde's thin lips as she spoke.

"I came to pick you up." The Wutainese mentally sighed before stating indifferently.

"What about work?" Elena asked accusingly again, while Seira turned back to her food in relieve as she was forgotten almost immediately.

"I finished earlier." He replied with his previous vigor before adding tiredly, fully aware of his girlfriend's hidden stubborn behaviors which tend to bit him when she's drunk. "Aren't you the one whining about me working late?"

"Of course, I'll be more than happy if only someone hadn't yelled at me this morning." She folded her arms in front of her chest and looked away like an annoyed kid who was getting grounded for a stupid reason.

Tseng finally sighed visibly at his subordinate's childish act and slightly loosened his tie."Elena...I've said I'm sorry earlier, right? I was tired and wasn't in my right mind. I just lost it."

Silence reigned in Reno's house, for once.

"Elena..."He warned at the silent treatment he was given and felt the frown on his temple tightened with something else inside him. "Do you know how worried I was when you weren't home even though you checked out early? And you wouldn't answer your phone either! "Tseng accidentally raised his tone as much as his deep voice would allow and immediately regretted as he watched the female Turk bit her lips and fought back tears, still staying silent and looking away from him.

"Tseng." Rude warned behind him, helping his boss get a grip on himself before continuing. "Just tell her."

"But-" The Turk's leader tried to argue for a moment before collecting his thoughts and sighed again. "Listen, Elena." He started and stared straight at her misty eyes that had found its way to him again, suddenly getting curious at the almost silent conversation that had just taken place. "I was working late so that I can have a vacation next week."

"Great, now you're leaving me for a vacation!" The drunk blonde finally burst into tears dramatically, ignoring the trio who was by now watching openly and her own lover who was slightly flustered and pink on the cheeks.

"_We_ are going." Tseng quickly wrapped his arms around her neck and pulled her against his well built stomach. "Both of us are going to Costa Del sol next week. I want to celebrate your birthday...together." The stoic raven haired man immediately felt the heat rising up to his face when Elena looked up dreamily with a little sob.

"You remember...my birthday?"

"Of course, it's the day you were born." He finally couldn't resist the urge to look away but almost instantly found himself staring back at those lovely brown orbs as Elena gripped his flushed cheeks before pulling him into a tight embrace.

"Tseng...thank you. I though you didn't love me anymore." She sighed in relief and rested her cheek against his shoulder.

"That's impossible. Now let's go home."

"Carry me home." The female Turk backed away and asked innocently, hands loosely draped above her lover's shoulders.

And Tseng had the sudden urge to strangle Reno. Since he was sure at the moment that his usually innocent girlfriend was finally influenced by the redheaded devil who was covering his mouth with a hand which was supposed to stop his laughter and food from bursting out. He sighed in defeat after Elena didn't show any signs of dropping the request. "Just for you." He whispered before lifting her up in his arms, bridal style.

"I know." She whispered back in a sing song voice and tightened her arms around his neck.

Tseng suppressed a shudder at her voice right next to his ears and blinked in confusion as he felt the blonde planting wet kisses across his jaw before finally setting on his lips. He saved a glance at their companions who, by now were busily pretending to be engrossed by their food, before fully turning his attention to the blonde in his arms.

It wasn't for another minute of disturbing noises, escaping from the couple who were in their own world, that Reno groaned in annoyance and started complaining. "Okay, guys. Thanks for the show, you can tell me more behind the scenes later at work."

If Tseng had heard the host of the house he was making out at, he paid no heed at him and continued with the task of pleasing his lover at hand. He could do the ignoring for once, right?

"Oi, oi, oi, when are you gonna stop? Thanks for the entertainment but continue the makeup sex in your own house." The redhead finally snapped as he stood up and pushed his busy guests through the living room and hallway behind his door. "Nobody fucks in my house, except me." He added with a smirk before locking them out of his apartment, slightly panting at the effort needed to push his boss out of his house.

"Rude, when was the last time Tseng ordered Elena anything?" The Turk's second in command asked his partner after returning to his seat.

"...Long time ago..." He replied briefly before a giggle escaped to the air.

"They're so romantic." Seira who had just taken the last bite of her dinner commented with a small smile adoring her petite face.

"You call that romantic?" Her host asked in exaggerated incredulity before standing up again. He placed one hand on the back of her chair and the other on the table in front of her, effectively trapping her as he leant forward and gave her a good scene of his naked chest through the top of his shirt. "Want me to show you how a real romantic couple should be?" Reno whispered right next to her unexpecting ear, raising goose bumps and the color of her cheeks.

"Go away, jerk!" She landed a tight slap on his arm as Reno grabbed her plate and laughed away.

"I just love to see your reactions."

Rude watched their exchange silently and shook his head before standing up himself and taking the plate away from his friend. "Your hand...is hurt." He simply said before the other could even protest.

"You're a guest, Rude. Let me do it. Reno." Seira was the one who stopped him this time and gestured the redhead to carry her to the kitchen, only to be shut up by a short "I'll be faster." and a glance at her unmoving legs.

"This just came out." The silent Turk added and handed his partner a DVD case before walking to the kitchen.

"Whoa, you bought it? That's cool, dude." The Turk flipped through the small, rectangular box himself before handing it to the only female in the room and proceeded to carry her in his arms.

"What's this? A movie." She herself took awhile to skim through the content of the disc before grinning and letting out a victorious laugh. "You guys chose the wrong opponent to mess with."

* * *

Seira let her head lolled to her right and rested it against the top of the couch she was sitting at as she giggled at the sight of the duo sitting on the floor in front of her who were struggling with the gamepads in their hands. She decided to rest her eyes after watching the redhead who was practically beating at the poor controller in his hands and the other Turk who was beating at his controller at hand with a little more grace.

Reno was beyond frustrated at his losing streak against the girl behind him, who turned out to be...quite a pro at the type of fighting game they were playing and couldn't help but cried in relief as he finally managed to beat Rude. "Yeah, did you see that_?_! I won!" He turned around with a victorious grin and immediately fell silent as he watched the sleeping brunette's even breathing.

Rude made to stand up but was stopped by a tap on his shoulder.

"I'll do it." His partner whispered before moving to carry the girl's light body to his room. "Good night." He adjusted the pillow under her head, tucked the covers under her chin and whispered next to the unconscious brunette's ear before silently retreating.

"When was the last time you smiled to a girl like that?" The silent Turk's deep voice behind him almost made him jumped and slammed the door on his own face.

"What?" Reno who was still staring at the door managed to force a smile, giving his all to feign ignorance at the obvious question.

"4 years...right?"

"What are you trying to say?" He dropped his smile and turned to glare at his partner's sunglasses.

"You're trying to open up...its good."

"Shut up, I'm not falling for her." The redhead mumbled as he closed his eyes and massaged the frown on his temple.

"You're still blaming yourself?"

"I said shut the fuck up!" He raised his voice and hurled his unhurt fist on the wall behind him. "Ju-"

"Reno...is everything alright?" The drowsy, muffled voice from the room behind them made both the trained men jumped.

"Nothing's wrong. You should go back to sleep, sorry for the ruckus." Reno immediately called back.

"Hmm..." Was her only reply before falling back to her dreamland.

"Hey, can you leave, partner? I'm getting kinda sleepy too."

"Reno..." Rude started with a warning tone.

"Please." He turned around and added, sighing in relief at the other Turks disappearing footsteps and the sound of his door being opened and slammed shut.


	7. Dreams and Realities

_I walked as casually as my trembling legs and irregular heartbeat allowed, hoping that my echoed footsteps which sounded louder than it should, were just figments of my paranoia of walking through a lifeless alley at this time of day._

_The dark, small path which was abnormally quiet sent chills down my spine and I couldn't help but widen my steps in hopes that the end of the road will approach sooner. But that's when the echoes fell out of pace and reverberated as an entirely unique set of footsteps behind me._

_Running which wasn't an option earlier, in fear of making a fool out of myself or risking them outrunning me when my house stood just a few block away immediately became the only course of action my brain could instruct my body to do._

_I ran, stumbled and ran as fast as I could, ignoring anything else save for my imagination which were running wild at what the sick person who was chasing me was planning to do if he got a hold of me._

_Heaven forbid that being from touching me, let alone do god-knows-what he was planning to do._

_I felt a hand gripped my shoulder as a shrill scream filled the air. __"__Lemme go!__"__ And it sounded awfully like my voice._

I gasped as I jolted awake, damp from a thick sheet of cold sweat covering my body.

It took me awhile to focus my dazed eyes on the unfamiliar ceiling which had been the sight greeting me for the past four days after waking up in this foreign world and being plagued by similar nightmares.

I sighed tiredly as I struggled to sit up with a heavier head than usual and looked around, immediately taking notice of the bright red nestled on the floor beside the bed.

Reno was sleeping peacefully on a mattress laid on the floor and I couldn't help but stare, noticing that he looked older without his silly grin or cocky smirk plastered on his face.

Exhausted was a major understatement of what I felt like at the moment, there's a steady pounding inside my head and my barely awake mind is having trouble to stop spinning around.

Giving up from staying awake, I lie down on my stomach, stretched my hand forward and let it hang from the side of the bed, resting my cheek on my arm.

Keeping my eyes locked on the man who was still deep in his slumber.

The man who had saved my life just a few days ago…

The man I've been living with, for about 4 days…

The man who I was certainly falling for…

…And the same man I forbade myself to love.

* * *

_My worn out body was covered by wounds of varying states after the battle, blood escaping freely from almost all the cuts and gashes. Those damn AVALANCHE scum managed to find even stronger members this time. _

_I was clinging to the door of the helicopter which barely saved me from the huge-ass-sword-wielding-proclaimed-ex-SOLDIER when the pillars exploded and the plate started groaning in protest._

_The chopper's propellers which were beating the air above my head almost deafened my ears, but it wasn't enough to block the mixed banshee howls of people...innocent-in this case-who were being sandwiched by the falling plate because of a single button...that I had easily pushed with my own hands. _

_"__You don't deserve to be happy. Rot in hell with us!__"__ I can distinguish a woman's cursing over thousands other screaming in my head._

_"__You're just a coldblooded psychopath!__"_

_"__I know, I know. I've been called worse. Now get the fuck out of my head!__"_

And I was immediately awake, without the additional wheezing and cold sweat drenching my whole body. Those nightmares kinda became boring after 4 years.

My eyelids felt exceptionally heavy today and I could feel someone gazing at me without a trace of murderous intent but something more...soothing, which stopped me from whipping out my EMR and preparing myself for an attack.

It took me awhile to get a grip on reality and force myself to be alerted at any possible threat on my life. Every second could cost your own life, being a Turk should've trained my mind not to do something as stupid as this but I couldn't help but relax again as I force my eyes open and found those beautiful yet heartbreaking jade orbs staring at the air between them.

"Isn't it handsome?" I couldn't help but chuckle as I cracked a joke and watch the tranced brunette jump at his sudden voice breaking the silence over them.

"Indeed it is, prince charming." She was being sarcastic at the prince charming part.

"Prince charming? That's gay."

"Why are you sleeping there?"

Is it that annoying to sleep in one room with me, I spat my words back, disappointed. "Gramps told me to keep you under 24 hour surveillance."

"No, I mean why are you sleeping down there? Shouldn't it be me sleeping there and you sleeping up here?"

"Why?" I narrowed my eyes, trying to suppress a smile splitting my face. "Of course I can't let my princess sleep on the floor." I stood up and headed to the door hiding my wide grin from her, curious of what her reaction will be this time.

"Rude, Elena and Tseng are Turks like you right." She tried to change the topic. "I thought the Turks will be full of mean looking guys, but I think my imagination went wrong again this time." I can hear her shuffling and trying to sit up, but fear raided me, fear of looking to her eyes and answering about what she knew.

"Y-yeah." I answered hesitantly as questions piled up in my head. She knew about us Turks? Did Cloud and Tifa tell her? How far did she know about us?

"All of the Turks I've met so far are kind people." She said again.

"You couldn't say that to someone that you'd just met once." I replied coldly to her cheerful thoughts, getting slightly annoyed at her naive way of judging people. How could she survive so far with those simple views?

"Maybe you're right, but I can guarantee that you're a good guy since I'd lived with you for a couple of days, right." The smile on her face was evident in her voice and it somehow irked me so much.

"Don't think like that, you don't know what I've done in my past." I quickly walked to the door, wanting to get out of this conversation but her next words made me stop.

"I know, I know about your past, Reno. Cloud told me."

"You know it? You know it and you can still call me a good guy!" I accidentally raised my voice and turned back right in time to see her jumped in surprise.

"Isn't 4 years enough. Why can't you move on?" She said softly, as if afraid that I would snap and hurt her.

"Many lives are lost." I said calmly as I tried to get a grip of myself.

"When AVALANCHE bombed the mako reactor, a lot of causalities were formed but they could still move on, so why couldn't you." Her voice sounded frustrated this time.

"They've done a lot of great things like saving the world. Of course people will forgive them."

"But isn't Shinra also helping the world now? It's time Reno, time to forgive yourself."

"Forgive, huh? Easier said than done." I said indifferently and made to retreat before I would snap and do anything that I would certainly regret. Can't help it, it's a sensitive topic after all.

"Reno, why are you so stubborn?"

"You don't know anything! Do you think it's that easy to forget all their screams, those who died because of your own hands, when it haunts you every night?"

"Reno, forgiving doesn't mean-"

"Denzel!" I finally shouted to stop her, getting sick of getting scolded by Tifa, Rude and now her of all people.

"Den…zel?"

"He's one of them; he lost his parents in the sector 7 incident." And that shut her up for good.

She didn't reply again, she must've think of me as a bad guy now. I quickly walked out and slammed the door behind me. My blood boils, angry at myself. How could I raise my voice to her? She had done nothing wrong, she just wanted the best for me and I…I got mad at her who tried to help me.

I marched to the kitchen and slapped my face with cold water from the basin.

Truth to be told, the problem didn't lie at sector seven but everything before that. The plate incident was just the final string that his self conscious broke that it became the epitome of guilt in his mind.

After cooling my head down, I quickly walked back to my room, wanting to apologize even though I knew everything won't be the same anymore.

"Seira, I'm really sorry I-" I opened the door, just to find the last thing which I've expected to see. "Seira!"


	8. How To Forgive

"Reno..."

The vigorous pounding in her head had become similar to her irregular heartbeat by now. Sweat poured from her neck and temple yet she felt chilled to the bone and couldn't stop herself from trembling. Reno's voice sounded distant even though he was just a few feet away and she barely noticed the door being slammed shut as he left her behind.

The dazed brunette clutched the white linen under her hands, attempting to stand up and get her bearings right since everything around her seemed to spin uncontrollably and her vision were getting spots like an ugly TV transmission even when she was forcing her eyes as wide as possible.

Seira gasped at the blinding pain which suddenly racked her entire body when she took a steadying breath before doubling over. Her mind whirled at the slight movement and the redhead's final word wasn't helping and making her head heavier instead.

"Reno..." She managed a gasp as she finally gave in to the pain and let her face fell to the bed.

"Seira, I'm really sorry I-"Reno stopped dead on his tracks at the sight of the brunette lying face down on the bed, struggling to breath and grasping at the white sheets till her knuckles were white. "Seira!" He immediately jumped to the bed and cradled the shaking form in his arms, gently shaking her awake.

"C'mon, wake up, Seira!" He called through gritted teeth before fishing his phone from his pocket and flipping it open with a flick of his wrist. After searching through a list of familiar names and number, he hit the call button and pinned the device to his ear with his shoulder. His free hand landed on her forehead but was immediately pulled back as fast as he put it over, after feeling the sudden rise in temperature on his pale skin.

Her skin was blazing hot.

"Doctor Rayne speaking. May I help you?" A voice came in from the mobile phone beside his ear.

"G-gramps! Seira is so hot!"

"…Reno, don't you dare touch her, she's too young for you."

"Not that hot! I mean she's literally burning, I'll bring her to Seventh Heaven now…and she's not that young, she's almost 19!" He brought the brunette's own words to his defense before flipping the communication device shut and running out of the house without bothering to lock the door. Hoping that every hurried steps he took could lessen the pain of the young woman who was clutching his usual white shirt as if it was her lifeline.

It took him some acrobatic jumps through the stairs in the emergency exit to reach the basement parking lot in record time, he wasted no time and immediately spotted his flashy jet black bike, placing the brunette on top of his bike and letting her sit in front of him. His left hand held her tight to his body while his right hand handled the steer.

And the engine roared to life before speeding up, only leaving haunting echoes in the silent basement.

* * *

Reno kicked the door open, revealing an anxious Tifa and Doctor Rayne pacing in the bar.

"Take her upstairs, I've prepared a room." Tifa said sternly and ran upstairs, leading the two men into a room with a single bed.

Reno placed the brunette gently on the bed covered with white linen, located at the furthest corner of the room. He had to pry the suffocating figure's grip on his shirt so that he could move away. Doctor Rayne quickly moved in and shoved the redhead aside, allowing himself to examine his patient.

"Get out, Reno. I promise you, she'll be okay."

Tifa tapped her hand on the worried redhead's shoulder, making him look around right into her burgundy eyes, concern written all over her motherly face. "Reno…"Tifa muttered, wordlessly pleading him to understand for once.

And the redhead walked away before the older brunette was able to say anything else, closing the door as gently as he could behind him. He walked backward to the narrow hallway till his back met the wall, sighing heavily as he slid down along the icy wall and his bottom met the cold wooden floor.

Reno pulled one of his legs to his chest, making it a makeshift table for his elbow to rest and buried his face in his open palm. _Can she make it? _The question struck his head hard. He can still feel her burning skin scorching his masculine yet slender arms, leaving a gash-like feeling which refuses to heal, her tight and desperate little fingers grasping and forming a permanent wrinkle on his shirt.

"You'll catch a cold if you sit there." A low and calm voice called out the brooding redhead.

Reno jerked his head to the direction of the unexpected voice. His aquamarine eyes met a pair of infamous SOLDIER's traditional, mako infused eyes.

"Wait downstairs, I'll make something warm for you." Cloud said again before walking down the stairs next to him, leaving the redhead with the dull thuds of his boots.

* * *

The brown substance stirred inside a black mug he was nursing, the tempting aroma of chocolate flowed out with small puffs of visible smoke.

Reno carefully took a sip after watching it intently, not sure if the brown looking liquid was safe to drink since it was made by the blonde who was sitting across him who had one arm resting on the table and another guiding a similar but white mug to his thin lips.

"Did Tifa whip you with some of her cooking skills?" The redhead said, barely in control to flash Cloud with one of his cocky smirk. He didn't want to admit, but the warm drink was actually relaxing his tensed muscles and melting something more inside of him.

"Listen, Reno. First, Tifa never whipped me and second, you know that I practically lived outdoors for almost two years. A task as simple as making hot chocolate to warm the body is a basic need to survive in the cold." The blonde said indifferently.

The redhead shrugged at his not-so-humorous friend. "Who knows what you ate when you were living in that old church, take outs…or maybe…flowers." He chuckled at his own thoughts of Cloud consuming Aerith's precious flowers like a Chocobo munching at their favorite greens.

"…Never tried." The blonde stayed silent, as if contemplating at the idea before continuing. "And Aerith would probably haunt me to death if I did that." Cloud said flatly as he silently shuddered at the thought.

"…Yeah, I remember when she got mad because I stepped on one of her flowers. She immediately turned into one hell of a nagging mother." He shuddered at the memory of the kind and gentle flower girl.

Cloud chuckled at the redhead's experience and soon the silent bar was filled with their gentle laughter.

"Are you guys drunk?" Tifa descended from the stairs behind the counter, her hands occupied by a pile of white sheets and what Reno could identify as Seira's clothes. "Chocolate?"

"How is she?" Reno quickly stood and half-jogged to the brunette.

"She doesn't look really good. You can go up now, The Sorcerer is almost done."

Reno walked up the stairs without any delays, arriving on the second floor right when Dr. Rayne was closing the door to Seira's room. "Is she okay?" He asked hesitantly, it even almost sounded like a whisper to him.

"She passed her critical state, but don't wake her up. Her fever hasn't broke down. Stay by her side, I'll be downstairs if anything happens." The man in a white lab coat patted the redhead's back before descending down the stairs he had just came from.

The Turk slowly walked into the room without making any noise and started to observe since he hadn't had the time at his first visit earlier. The small room was illuminated by a modest lamp on top of a nightstand beside the bed and dull sunlight from the curtained window on the other side of the cornered bed. A chair was placed beside a dresser which stood across the bed.

As he walked into the room, he lifted the chair with ease and sat on it beside the unconscious brunette.

Her eyebrows were knitted together in a frown while she breathed heavily through her petite nose and mouth. Her usual pink lips were colorless, contrasting with her rosy cheeks which were flushed by the fever. Golden-brown curly locks just like Denzel's attached at the rim of her face by odorless sweat from her temple and the white covers, tucked below her chin was concealing her heaving chest.

Seira stirred and tried to adjust her eyes to the surrounding, while Reno who was too caught on his watch didn't realize until the brunette groaned. "Reno? Where am I?"

"Seventh Heaven, you fainted because of the fever." He answered blandly

"I-" Memories stroke her head, almost immediately she recollected everything which had just happened a few hours ago and quickly pushed herself up with her elbows just to find that the headache and her aching body once again forced her to fall back as fast as she tried to sit up. "Reno, I need to talk to you-" She struggled to sit up again as a finger brushed her lips softly and easily pushed her back to the soft mattress, already slightly panting with the sheer force it took her.

"Sssh, don't talk now. Save your energy to fight the fever." The blanket covering her was now loose around her stomach, revealing the apparel she was wearing. A white oversized full-sleeve shirt, it was a little too big for her, especially in the chest part which immediately made it clear to them who the original owner was.

The brunette shook her head dizzily, enough not to worsen the pain raiding her head. "I just have to say a few things, now." She glared at him without giving hint of wanting to break the eye contact as her throbbing head demanded.

Reno ran a hand through his fiery red locks and gave in to the obviously sick teenager. "Okay, okay. What do you wanna say? I'm all ears now."

"Reno...forgiving, doesn't mean you have to forget everything. You just have to stop thinking about it and stop blaming yourself, besides…it wasn't your fault from the first place. You were ordered to do so by your boss and he made you and the other Turks as his scapegoat."

And Reno found himself speechless at the girl's comment. This was the first time someone had ever called him and the other Turks as the old president's scapegoat. They had done a lot of bad things, enough not to get people's sympathy. _Even chocobo head had moved on_…_maybe it's time for me to…_

Seira took a deep breath and placed her hand on top of her chest to calm her heavy respiratory. "And about Denzel…let's talk to him later. I'm sure he'll forgive you, he's a good boy." She looked up at him and expected some kind of resistance from the stubborn Turk but his next reaction was something which greatly shocked and made her reel in a whole different level than the high fever was making her, something which she had never expected from Reno.

The redhead smiled as he moved to sit on the bed, right next to the resting brunette. And yes, he was smiling, not smirking or grinning or any other simple forms of smiling. At first she thought her eyes were finally failing and deceiving her with all the poundings going on in her head, but as he sat beside her, she became sure that everything was real despite the strong urge of falling back to sleep.

It was the first real smile that he had shown to anybody since a long time ago. Even before he pushed that button and joined the Turks, smiling was obviously not one of his hobbies with the hard life he had gone through. "I'll try…now go to sleep, you need some rest."

The brunette was now speechless, at the scene she was looking at and sleep which was starting to claim her back. "You have to, after all the lectures you had received." She smiled and felt his lips pressed hard on her forehead just when her eyes were going to give out.

She could swear that her face was blushing fiercely at the feel of a new wave of heat which swept her face and a chuckle had escaped the smiling redhead even though darkness engulfed her soon after that.


	9. Forgiven

A/N: Yay! Chapter 9! Thanks to Anexi and Enyara for the reviews, they really helped me a lot so please continue. :p

For the others, thank you for reading and once again reviews and critics (Not flames) are always welcome and requested.

* * *

Seira woke up in the morning, when the sun shone brightly to her eyes, from the window which she was sure was covered by a curtain earlier. She woke up with a certainly better feeling; her head was just a little spinning and her body was no longer lifeless as before and what was best was the redhead sleeping on the chair beside her bed.

It was definitely not a dream. He really smiled at her and what made her really sure was because now he had just opened his eyes and smiled to her.

Reno's eyes cracked open, his first vision was the brunette who looked a lot more healthier, her lips now pink as usual and her eyes were brighter than yesterday or maybe it was just because of the sunlight, but who gives a damn about that, she's awake and smiling and that's the most important thing for him now.

The redhead smiled at the brunette who was still dazed by the events in her head. "How're you feeling?" His smile immediately turned to a smirk as he opened his mouth, he was definitely not used to it but he knew that soon enough it won't feel as awkward as this with Seira around.

"Better than yesterday." She forced out a voice from her dried throat which was only capable of a small whisper. She herself was surprised by her new husky voice and tried it several times by forcing some syllables out of her throat.

Reno stood up and held both of her arms with his hands, pulling her up into a sitting position. He filled one of the two glasses on top of the night stand with water from a half filled pitcher and handed it to the coughing girl.

"Thanks." She whispered her new hoarse voice and took the glass from the redhead. Her eyes shut tightly as the clear liquid passed through her lumpy throat; it felt like there was a chunk of needles jammed inside her throat and pricked her every time she ingested.

Seira handed the empty glass back to Reno, she felt tired just by doing her previous actions. The brunette just wanted to fall back to sleep but the redhead filled the glass again and handed it to her.

She leaned her head back to the headboard, avoiding the cylindrical glass and shook her head lightly. Her hand pushed the glass back to her nurse as sleep was claiming her once again. "No, my throat…hurts."

"Oi, don't sleep first, you have to drink a lot. It's an order from gramps, you can sleep after you finish this." He shook her shoulder and pressed the glass to her lips, slowly tilting it up as she opened her mouth and closed her eyes to bear the upcoming pain.

Her chest heaved up and down heavily as the glass was drained and taken away from her lips. The red head pressed his forehead against her smaller one, her soft and hot breath tingling on his lips. "Your fever is rising again, you can sleep now."

The brunette felt the redhead's face near her, his forehead pressed against her own and his stable breath trickled near her lips but she felt really weak despite her pounding heart. She wanted to raise her hand, push him away or even pull him into an embrace but all she could hold were her dropping eyelids which fell as soon as the redhead pulled himself away.

* * *

The brunette's eyes cracked open, staring at the dark surrounding. She blinked and rubbed her eyes several times to get rid of the stiffed muscles. Her eyes shifted to the window next to her which was once again curtained. She raised her hand and grasped the checker motif curtain, pulling it to the side. The sky was black, cloudless, with some stars twinkling near the crescent moon.

The room was only illuminated by the lamp on top of the night stand beside her bed. The chair which was used by Reno earlier sat empty beside her. Her fuzzy mind soon snapped back, noise filled her head. Muffled voices came from the door. She grasped the sheets beneath her and pushed her up into a sitting position.

Seira stretched out her body like a cat, easing the stiffed muscles of her hands, torso and her…leg? Her eyes widened at the feeling, she grabbed the covers covering her lower frame, slamming it to the wall next to the bed and gawked with awe. Her toes curling and wriggling together as her fingers trailed through her leg, feeling the long wanted sensation.

She could feel her leg, her brushing toes and every movement that it made as it followed her instructions. She tried to raise her wobbly legs as it shivered, rose a few inches before it gave in to the gravity and fell down again to the warm bed.

The brunette slowly moved her legs to the side of the bed, letting it meet the cold wooden floor. She flinched and stood up as she shifted her weight to her bare leg, it was heavy and difficult to move it with her whole weight on it so she grabbed the bed, chair and everything available near her which could help her hold her weight as she walked.

After a good 10 minutes of struggling, Seira reached the door and pushed the door handle down. Noise from the bar below immediately filled her ears, lights moved around from the stairs as people walked around the first floor.

She held the door as she pushed herself to the hallway but tripped at her own leg. The brunette fell flat on her knees then her palms just when her face was a few inches from the ground. She turned around and stretched her leg, allowing her to examine her red knees which she was sure would turn black, purple or blue later.

Reno and Tifa ascended up the stairs, leaving the crowded bar to Cloud. The Red head and older brunette's eyes went wide when they saw Seira on the floor, struggling to push herself up. The red head almost shouted and jumped to her when he felt a hand on his chest, stopping his moves.

Tifa pulled him back with a push of her hand, her maternity instinct taking over her like a mother who was going to witness her child's first steps.

The brunette was too busy to notice the couple who were just a few feet away from her, she placed her aching hand on the cold floor and pushed herself up, falling several time on the process but finally stood up while her hand grasped the flat wall.

Seira looked up from the ground and found the worried couple standing not so far from her. She slowly strode to them who were just able to watch her in awe, a smile tugged on her face as her eyes lit eagerly. She was just a few more steps away from the redhead when she fell and held his arm to support her tumbling body.

Reno threw the small plastic bag on his hands, grabbed her small waist and hoisted her up to his shoulder, making the brunette let out a startled cry.

"Reno! What the hell are you doing?!" She shouted a whisper. Seira struggled out of his strong arm around her waist with her weak strength, not affecting her captor at all.

"I had just left you not more than half an hour and you had already gotten yourself into trouble!" The redhead stomped into the room and threw her gently to the bed from his shoulder. "You'll never get well if you keep doing this!" He lunged his head to her, his temple landing on the brunette's to check on her temperature. "See, your fever is rising again."

Seira felt her cheeks flushed, not by the fever but by the redhead's intimacy. She could feel his breath on her face and her heart almost jumped out of her chest. "But I can move my leg, I'm just testing it." She pouted, trying to hide her embarrassment.

Reno stood still in his position, she was just too cute to resist, and he just wanted to pull her closer, hug her and kiss her till she was out of air. But his thoughts were cut off by the sound of someone clearing their throat.

"Sorry for disturbing, but she have to drink the potion, Reno." Tifa leaned on the door frame and smiled at the couple. She shook a small plastic bag, hanging loosely on her right index finger.

Reno immediately jerked his head up and walked to the older brunette, trying to suppress his smile and flushed face, not knowing that his face was already colored as bad as his hair.

Tifa clamped her lips tightly together, suppressing her laughter from the couple in front of her. She finally went out, slammed the door and burst out into laughter after seeing Reno helped Seira drank the potion while both of them acted like a clumsy new lover.

"What's wrong with her?" Seira asked as she finished drinking the bitter tasting potion.

"Just ignore her, she's a bit high tonight. Here, drink this, it'll taste better." Reno, took out another bottle filled with brown liquid and handed it to the brunette.

She quickly unscrewed the plastic bottle and took big gulps of it, relieved by the sweetness which passed down through her tongue but not by the slight pain on her esophagus. The brunette sighed in contempt as almost all of the bitterness on her mouth had been washed away by the tea. "Thanks." She finally said when she had drained the whole content of the container.

The redhead sat on the chair that he had occupied earlier again and stared at the brunette. "Sleep, we're going home tomorrow after gramps checks you for the last time."

The brunette just replied with a nod and pulled the covers around her frame before closing her eyes and tried her best to fall back to her dreamlands. She could feel him staring at her, her heart pounded hardly on her chest. She tried to ignore it and tried to calm her beating heart when the redhead stood up.

Reno felt Seira's anxiousness by the little body movements which she did and decided to go out and spend the rest of the night in the bar downstairs.

"You're going to talk to Denzel tomorrow, right-" The brunette blurted out and immediately covered her mouth with her hand, trying to stop the flow of anymore unwanted words from it.

"Don't worry, I won't run away. I'll be their when you wake up tomorrow, so just relax and sleep now." He flashed a brief smile and walked out.

Seira's tensed muscles relaxed as soon as the door shut close, dizziness taking over her head and after a few minutes she was back in darkness.

* * *

"Aaaa…aaa, Reno…" Seira moaned, she pushed her head back into the headboard and dug her fingers on the bed. Her toes curling and wriggling as the pain on her knees spread up. "Stop it…it hurts! Reno!" She cried as the pain grew.

Reno was sitting beside her, on the bed. His palms pressing down, massaging the brunette's bruised knees. "Stop complaining. No pain, no gain. It'll get worst if you just leave it." He grinned and continued kneading as his patient kept whining.

A knock erupted from the door and soon Doctor Rayne pocked his head in, making sure that he wasn't disturbing any private activity of the couple before he walked in. "You look healthier, Seira."

"Thanks to you, Reno and Tifa." She smiled and winced as the redhead kept rubbing her knees. "Ouch! Stop it, Reno!"

The man in his late sixties chuckled and tapped Reno's shoulder. Gesturing for him to stop and step aside so that he could do a full check on her. He checked the brunette's pulse on her wrist, neck and chest, her blood pressure, throat and leg with all of his apparatus in his black leather bag. "You look perfectly fine to me now, except for some bruises which I'm sure Reno knows how to treat and about your leg…Reno will also help you with that."

"Huh? Me? How?" Reno pointed his thumb out of his fist to himself, a dumbfounded look on his face.

"You helped Rufus's treatment that time, right. It'll be the same, but it won't take that long since her legs were just absent for a few days."

"Roger, I'll do my best." He smirked and saluted casually to the other two. The other two just chuckled and shook their head. Reno was still always the clown of the day, never failed to brighten the mood in every condition but now he was happier than he was ever in his life, he felt lighter, as if an old heavy burden had just been lifted up from his shoulders and laughing from his heart had been more easier.

"I'll be leaving then. Good luck on both of you and I'll contact you if I find any information to help you go back, Seira." The Doctor waved his hand and bid them farewell, leaving the couple alone again in the room.

The mention of her origins made them tensed. She doesn't belong here and both of them knew that she's going to go back to her world sooner or later, well at least that's what Seira thinks. The awkward silence was soon broken by the redhead.

"Well…I think it's also time for us to go home. Shall we?" Reno offered a hand to Seira, knowing that she wouldn't want to be carried and will insist on using her own legs while it could be used.

"Reno…we have to talk to Denzel first."

"Sei…can we do this another time?" He sat beside the brunette and looked at her jade eyes, pleadingly.

"Re…let's just do it now and end it. The faster, the better. Why are you so afraid of this?" She sighed and stared back to the redhead's aquamarine gaze, unaffected by his pleading look.

"What if…he doesn't forgive me?" The redhead looked down and stared at his hands. "I've done a lot of things to his life."

"Don't worry, he's a good boy and 4 years is quite a long time. I bet you're the only idiot who still broods on that incident."

"Wha-" The redhead was just about to protest when a knock was heard and a pair of head pocked in from the door. One was a small brunette, her hair braided with a big pink ribbon and the other was a boy with golden brown locks just like Seira's who apparently was also the topic of their conversation just now.

"Reno, Seira neechan, Tifa is asking if you want your breakfast in your bedroom or downstairs." The girl chirped.

"Oh, no need for that, Marlene. We're going to go down soon and…by the way, can I borrow Denzel for a while?" Seira smiled to the puzzled boy, while Reno just sighed and scratched the back of his head.

"Okay, I'll go down and tell Tifa." The younger brunette walked over and gave the older brunette a peck on her cheek before running out with full of energy.

"Sei neechan, is there something I could do?" The silent boy finally asked, slightly tilting his head to the side.

"Reno wants to talk to you. C'mon, Reno, go!" She shoved him towards the boy, receiving a groan from him.

"What's wrong, Reno?" Denzel said innocently, making the agitated redhead more anxious.

He ran his hand on his fiery crimson locks before starting his confession. "Denzel…umm…I-I…Sector Seven…" Reno stuttered in front of the younger boy. "I am…the one who blew sector seven down." He quickly said in one breath, making it almost incomprehensible.

But the boy had certainly heard it clearly, his emotion welling up as he clenched both of his fists, his usually emotionless facade changed to surprise, anger and then back to his normal expression.

"…Idiot." Denzel shot back.

"What?! I'm confessing here and you call me an id-"

"Don't say you've been brooding about it all this time." The boy placed his hands on his hips, looking at the redhead with an underestimating look while waiting for a reply which never came. "…You are certainly the king of idiots."

"…" Reno stood still, suddenly finding interest in the plain wooden floor that he was staring at intently.

"Don't blame yourself again…" Denzel finally said, knowing that his perpetual wait won't result on anything. He had to say something to the redhead or he won't be able to face his guilt. "I know the Turks were the one who dropped the plate since the beginning and I had forgiven whoever did it since a long time ago…never expected it to be you though."

Reno didn't move an inch, except for his eyes, trying to find something of his interest on the floor.

Denzel sighed and slapped his forehead at the immature and incoherent Turk. He knew that he would have to tell more of his troubles in the past to make the young Turk back to his senses. "If you hadn't dropped the plate, I wouldn't have met a lot of important people in my life. Not that I'm grateful that you killed my parents, but if all of that didn't happen…I wouldn't meet all of them, even Tifa and Cloud." The boy smiled, remembering the faces of the people that he had met at his journey. Mrs. Ruvi, Mr. Gaskin, Rix and everyone who had helped him move on.

Denzel's speech seemed to be affecting the redhead; he cocked his head and looked at the smaller boy with an innocent look, just like a small child who was allowed to do something which he was not usually allowed to. "Really?"

"Yes, I'm serious. So just drop it and move on." Denzel sighed again, receiving a laugh from Seira who was just watching the hilarious scene from the beginning. It was as though Reno was the younger one and Denzel, the father who was correcting his child. "Besides, Sei neechan will never forgive me if I don't forgive you." He walked over to the brunette who was sitting on the edge of the bed and hugged her.

"What are you saying, Denzel? I won't be mad at you just because of the idiot turkey-" The brunette smiled and planted a kiss on the boy's cheek.

"Bacon…sausage…and egg…" Reno sniffed, then let his stomach do the rest of the talking. His stomach growled like a pleading child and the other two watching, broke apart from their embrace and laughed while clutching their hurting sides.

"Let's head down for breakfast." Denzel finally said after holding his laughter for a while.

"You can go down first, Denzel. It'll take a little long for me to go down." Seira stood up wobbly as Reno walked to her and offered her his arm.

Denzel nodded and ran outside. Soon his light footsteps through the stairs could be heard and the couple started to walk outside.

It took about 5 minutes for both of them to walk out of the room and reach the stairs. Seira was just a few inches shorter from Reno and she was standing on a step above him, making her a bit taller. Her right hand gripped tightly to the redhead's forearm and the other holding on to the wall. "Reno." The brunette called out, making him turn his head around, his cheeks met with her soft and small lips. "Congratz…for moving on."

"T-thanks." Reno stuttered, quickly turned his head away and covered his face from Sei as if it was enough to hide his as-red-as-tomato face from the now chuckling brunette.

…It seems like a virus called Renoish had just infected her.


	10. Heroes

_A/N: Weee! Chapter 10 is up! This chapter happens 3 days after the last one but don't worry, the gaps will be filled in the next 2 or 3 chapters by flashbacks. Who would miss a chance to write Reno's behaviour to Sei after he became a skirt chaser again? –Evil laughs- LOL_

_Thanks for the reviews! And don't forget to review or critic but not FLAMES. It really fuels me up to write more. :p_

* * *

Reno yawned heavily as he lifted his eyelids, the smell of breakfast filling his nostrils and the sound of plates clattering filled his eardrums. He yawned and stretched out his whole body, his bone screaming in protest with the sudden strain. The redhead stepped away from the couch and walked to the dinning table as he watched a brunette who was busily shifting plates from the kitchen to the mahogany dinning table.

It was quite a scene for him, looking at her, standing there in front of his dinning table, preparing breakfast which she had made for both of them. They were just like a normal married couple, a status which Reno had never thought of earlier, but now it wasn't a very bad option for him with her around.

It would be nice to just live with one woman, a woman who he really loved. They can cuddle up together every night, talk about their future kids and forget about the one night stands that he usually did in his past. Fuck, what the hell happened to him, this had been his picture of hell years ago, but now it was different. Everything changed after that incident which he had forgiven himself for and after she came to his life.

Seira turned around and spotted the dazed redhead staring at her. His lanky form leaning against the wall, he was wearing a white full sleeved shirt, something like his usual Turk uniform but it was halfway unbuttoned. His hair was messier than it usually was, pointing out in every direction while his ponytail was still perfectly fixed behind his nape "Morning, sleepy head. I just wanted to wake you up, breakfast is ready."

"How's your leg?" Reno stepped closer to Seira who had focused back to her job on the table.

"I can walk normally now, thanks to your hard work this whole 3 days." She smiled without looking back at her companion when she suddenly felt his hands placed on the table near her sides and his face right beside her ears. She stopped her movement and tensed. His breath was tickling her neck and she can feel his body right behind her smaller one.

"You're welcome, Sei." He whispered to the brunette and planted a kiss on her now colored cheeks.

"Stop this, Reno." She shoved his arm which was confining her and made her way to the open kitchen, turning her head away in the other direction of the redhead's. The brunette made herself busy, pretending to clean the plates or anything which she can get a grip of in the basin.

Leave it to Reno about a girl's comfort. He always gets what he wants, especially in the woman field and now that he was free from his everyday self punishment, the old womanizer Reno is back. Except that now he only sticks to one girl, Seira. It was even odd how he hasn't made her sleep in one bed with him, after four days of his old self back. "What are you doing Sei? You can do all that later, come here and eat first." He sat down on one of the chair and smiled. The redhead placed his elbow adjacent on the table and rested his cheek on his fist.

Today's breakfast was traditional Japanese breakfast which consisted of a bowl of rice, Miso soup and a plate of grilled fish. Smoke still puffing from the dishes.

Seira moved from the kitchen and sat on the chair across him timidly. Still hiding her colored face by looking down, letting most of her bangs fall to her emerald orbs. Her teeth were tugging at her lower lip and her fingers fiddling with each other on her lap, her usual habit when she was nervous was running wild.

Reno looked up from his breakfast, a pair of chopsticks still stuck in his mouth. "What's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?"

"N-no I'm feeling perfectly fine." She finally looked up and shifted her hand to the chopstick on the table, bringing bits of rice to her mouth.

"Oi, seriously, tell me if there's something bothering you." Reno was starting to get nervous himself, trying to convince himself that the brunette was not agitated by his previous actions.

"…Can I ask you a favor?" She finally said after a moment of thinking.

Hell! Is she going to tell him to keep a radius of 1 meter away from her!? "Y-yeah, I'll work it out if I can." He replied hesitantly.

"Can you…can you take me to Midgar?"

"Huh?" The redhead's mouth hung open, his eyebrows cocked with a dumbfounded expression. He was glad that Sei was still looking at her lap, not realizing her companion's expression which will definitely make her laugh to death.

"Midgar…you know…the place where you found me." She explained timidly as if it was a forbidden topic. Well it was before, Midgar was the place where it all started and she was afraid if he went there he'll start remembering his burden again.

"Midgar? What for?"

"I feel…there's something missing…in my memory." Seira said in broken sentences, still unsure of how to explain her current feelings.

"What do you mean…? You forgot something?"

She sighed before answering the question which she herself was not certain of. "I kept having these dreams. Someone was chasing me and it felt too real to be a dream. Something definitely happened…which made me end up here."

Reno understood and just nodded, not wanting to question the obviously still confused girl. "Okay, I'll take you after you finish your breakfast."

* * *

The jet black Shinra bike sped up between piles of debris, the remnants of the fallen plates stayed untouched since the Omega incident a year ago.

Seira wrapped her arm tightly around the redhead's waist as if the wind would knock her out of her seat if she loosened it. Well, maybe she really could fly if she loosened her grip, they were going at such incredulous speed that she can see the scenery zap through her as if it was fast forwarded with a click of a remote. (Thanks to Reno's goggles which he never used for its function but for the sake of his style).

Reno finally stopped the vehicle in front of a ruined church and stepped one of his leg down to balance its body. The brunette followed and jumped off the bike as she gawked at the building in front of her, Reno lazily following behind her.

A European style church stood in front of her. It was ruined, part of its roof was gone and its window frame looked hollow, the beautiful stained window was too dirty to be noticed.

"Go on, open it." Reno demanded softly before the brunette pushed the oddly new looking door, gust of wind blew her face as soon as its interior came to sight.

"This is…beautiful…" She gasped as she stepped into the church and removed the goggle which was still covering her eyes. There was a pool surrounded by white and yellow lilies in the middle of the ruined building and the most eye catching object was the really huge sword standing behind the pool.

"Look at this." Reno quickly paced to the pool and sat on the edge of it. He plunged his bandaged hand into the cool water and groaned as he felt the tingling sensation on his palm.

After a few moments, he pulled his hand out and unwrapped the soaked cloth, showing the brunette his rough but now immaculate pale skin. "Magic."

"This church…Aerith Gainsborough?"

"Yup! And you're now standing in front of the one and only cure for Geostigma." He explained happily.

"Then, that big sword is it…Zack Fair's?" She stuttered with excitement and pointed at the big sword behind the pool. Seira had heard about Aerith and Zack from Tifa, privately when Cloud was gone running his delivering. About their entire love story, sacrifices which they made…and their bond with Cloud. She was very excited and sad, after hearing their story she had looked at them as heroes, heroes who had sacrificed a lot of things including their lives to save their friends and planet.

And there she stood, staring at the sword, flowers and the pool of magic water; it was the hero's last gifts to the ones still living in their places.

"You found me here-"

"Nope, I found you near the border of sector 6 and 7, somewhere near this church." Reno just watched her as she stood still, her eyes deep with sadness then suddenly walked along the pool, careful enough not to step on any of the flowers and kneel down near the huge buster sword. She entwined her finger together in front of her chest and shut her eyes close, praying.

The brunette prayed for both of the deceased soul, saying thanks for both of them for saving Gaia and how wonderful the place is. A bead of tear rolled down her cheeks as she remembered their story, how sad it was for them, separated for four years without knowing each other's harsh condition.

Reno quickly jogged to her when he saw her tear, walking a bit far away from the perimeter of the pool to evade the patches of flower around it. He tapped her shoulder, waking Seira from her trance. "What's wrong?" Panting, he finally said after looking at her emerald orbs.

"Nothing, just wondering how they could stand being apart from each other for so long…" She stood up, dusting her knees and shorts.

"You mean…Aeirth and Zack?" Reno gulped as he mentioned their names. Well, the Turks had a lot of encounter with them, starting from Tseng being Zack's frequent mission partner till Aerith's abduction on the day of Sector 7's fall and not excluding the Turks frequent job to spy on her.

"Yeah, both of them…" She sighed as she said, making it sound like a whisper and looked down on the patches of flowers, realizing that there were other smaller flowers except white and yellow Lilies.

A moment of silent passed by before the brunette decided to look up, spotting a sly grin on the redhead's face. "What?" She eyed him suspiciously. Seira had lived with him long enough to know that this was a sign of something bad he was planning.

The redhead just took a step forward, earning a step backward from the suspicious girl. "Stop, whatever you're trying to do, Reno." She warned, but Reno's grin grew wider as their space shrunk.

Their face was just an inch apart when Seira closed her eyes shut in anticipation of the redhead's mischief but instead she felt herself lifted up and soon water was all around her. The water filled her mouth as she yelped and slipped down through her throat.

"Reno! What the-" She managed to say between coughs after she resurfaced from the water. "What was that for?!" She yelled at the now laughing redhead. "Reno!" She yelled again upon getting no respond from the Turk other than his annoyingly loud laugh.

"Just…feel like doing it." He finally said, still holding back his erupting laugh.

"Jerk." She shot back.

"Sorry, sorry, okay." He stifled a laugh before removing his jacket and stretching out a hand to the completely soaked brunette.

Seira strode to the redhead, forming more ripples of waves on the water covering her stomach and gripped his hand tightly. She placed one foot on the ledge of the pool as her footing and with all her might pulled Reno down into the magic water.

He splashed into the water right next to her, bubble erupting above his head before Seira was pulled down by a strong arm gripping her waist and hand. She squirmed and pried her fingers from his death grip, air starting to run low in her lungs but her captor's arm wouldn't budge an inch. Her eyes were shut close when she tried to shout but instead of her voice, air rushed out in exchange of water which immediately filled her lungs.

Finally, her body gave out, energy seeping out of her as fast as the oxygen depleted from her lungs. Her body went limp and Reno's eye went wide from realization. He immediately pulled her upper torso to the cold wooden floor.

Staying that long holding his breath in the water was an easy job for him but he had totally forgotten that the brunette was not trained like how he was. "Sei! Are you all right?" He asked to the coughing girl, concern screaming from his voice and face.

"Ask yourself." She shot back with a glare.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to do this." He apologized. His face was priceless, just like a little kid who made their parents disappointed by their lack of brains.

"…Nah, part of it is my fault…I'm not…really good at holding breaths. Normal people would've survived that." She confessed shyly while coughing meekly to cover the awkward silence between them.

Reno thought for a while, yeah it didn't felt that long in the water, he finally realized, but still he felt a pang of guilt for doing it suddenly.

The brunette was glad that she was wearing the black vest that Tifa had gave her, it didn't shield her from the biting cold but at least it was covering her now transparent white T-shirt. The water was not really cold but now that Sei was out of it, she was already shivering from the sudden change of temperature. Her hands automatically moved to her opposite arms and began rubbing it with her now trembling hands.

"Take off your vest…and shirt." Reno lifted his body from the pool and walked pass her. His clothes were also completely soaked, his usual white full sleeve shirt now completely transparent revealing his bare well built chest and stomach.

"Huh?" Was the girl's only reply, she stared at him with a look of disbelieve. Maybe some water had invaded her ears and tricked her hearing…did he just tell her to…strip her clothes?!

"Hm, use this, its dry." He picked up his usual black Turk jacket and handed it to the still shocked brunette.

"O-oh yeah, thanks." She replied back after a moment of hesitation and blushed at how her thoughts can brought her to a conclusion like that. Reno who realized her thoughts just chuckled and whispered seductively on her ears.

"Ooh, I just knew you had such a dirty mind…Sei." He whispered her nickname with an extra blow on her ear, earning a tight slap on his shoulder and her fiercely colored cheeks. "I'll wait outside, faster change or you'll catch a cold." He strode out of the church with an evil laugh and grin.

* * *

Sei and Reno strode their way to Sector 7, the place where the redhead had found the brunette. After a good 10 minutes of walking while pushing the bike, Reno stopped dead on his tracks and pointed to a pile of rubbles. Well, actually it was a pile of metals with various thick rusting wires poking at different direction.

"I found you here." The redhead finally said.

"Here?" Her eyes widened in disbelieve. "I landed here? And I'm not…errr hurt? Not even a cut?" Her index finger roamed about, unable to decide which wire should she point at.

"Yup, you were like…an inch away from every wire…as if someone placed you there…" He went silent for a moment after realization hit him. If there was someone who brought her here and placed her here, then big chances are that something really happened that she had forgotten…And her dream…is it real?

Seira just stood there, until she suddenly poked her head beside the pile of junk. "Hey, Reno, someone else is here."

"Nah, it can't be. This area is off limits to anyone except W.R.O personals." He waved his hand in denial and shrugged her off, going back to his thoughts again.

"A guy is standing there!" She slammed her hand to her hips in exasperation and pulled the brooding redhead's ear to the side, allowing him to see pass the pile of metal and jutting wires.

"Uh, yeah, there's someone there. Wait here, I'll shoo him out." Reno marched lazily and began observing once he got a clearer view on the stranger.

The man who looked around his mid 40s had black silky locks tied into a ponytail at the length of his shoulder and bangs protruding from the sides of his temple. Every skin of his body was protected by garments, not showing an inch of his skin below his neck. His body wrapped by a black leather trench coat, his hands protected by black leather gloves, black trousers and black shoes covered the area below his coat. Doesn't he feel hot wearing those black outfits in a weather like this? He thought. Well it wasn't a really sunny day but wearing those damn thick black leather clothes sure makes people sweat just by looking at it.

"W.R.O. This area is off limits for anyone except W.R.O. personals." Reno fished his pockets for his black leather wallet before opening it with his fingers and showed a glance of his W.R.O. Id card to the stranger.

"…"

Reno crossed his arms, waiting for an answer which never came while enjoying the slight breeze, not finding any harm from the older man several feet in front of him. He cocked an eyebrow when he saw a trail of tear on his right eyes but then he realized that it was a scar stretching vertically from his right cheekbone, near the corner of his chocolate eyes till the middle of his cheek. The redhead took a step back and grimaced with his baby EMR already on his hand's firm grip as soon as he realized the sheathed katana tied to his waist.

The stranger or Mr. Black Stranger, his new nickname from Reno just stretched his left hand forward, palm facing the cautious redhead. He mumbled a spell and soon a blue fog engulfed his hand.

Reno charged forward, shouting his battle cry as he dodged the coming blizzard and swung his EMR to the trespasser's head before he was able to charge for another attack.

The older man just ducked down with his bangs following behind him, barely missing the stick which swayed above his head.

Reno quickly hammered his nightstick, his thumb ready to press the button which will electrocute his enemy but instead of hearing a cry, a clank was heard, followed by sparks of fire from the clashing metals.

The stranger had unsheathed his katana right in time to protect his head. The sword was a foot shorter from Sephiroth's sword Masamune but it still looked abnormally long for Reno.

The redhead pushed his EMR down before realizing the intruder's strength and jumped back for a safe distant from him.

"Who are you?" Reno barked out.

The stranger just looked at the corner of his eyes and smirked before vanishing with the breeze.

Reno just blinked hard, comprehending the situation at hand but just ran his hand through his fiery red locks. He turned to his sides, wanting to join his forgotten companion again but was met by a shocking view. His eyes widened and he ran to the brunette's comatose body on the ground. "SEI! Seira, wake up! What's wrong?!" He cradled her lifeless body on his arms and nudged her cheeks with his shacking hand but her head just fell limped on his arms.


	11. Farewell

_A/N: This chap is done at last! After series of writer's block and piles of school shits which really made it hard to write but it'll cheer me up if I read a review! Thanks for the review again Anexi! I love ya my faithful reviewer and I want more REVIEWS. C'mon it's just one or two words, just tell me if it's going good or bad but tell me the reason if it's going on the second one and I'll always try my best to improve._

_Anyways, I've just realized recently that I never wrote disclaimers, so this is it._

_Disclaimers: I DON'T OWN RENO or other character's and places in FF7 but I own Seira and Reno's apartment hehe. :p_

* * *

Sei inspected the rumble carefully, hoping to find any clues or leads that could gave an answer to everything, but instead she found a middle aged man who was staring up at the vast blue cloudy sky. The brunette told Reno about the suspicious man but he didn't believe at first till he sees it with his own eyes.

"Uh, yeah, there's someone there. Wait here, I'll shoo him out." He said confidently and strode to the stranger.

She rolled her eyes and slapped her forehead. _Great, an officer with red messy hair, wet clothes and not to be mentioned his slangy manner of speech. Who would've believed him as a Turk instead of a punk and there he walked confidently as if everyone knew his identity_. She thought loudly to herself.

Reno approached the older man and showed his Id from his pocket but suddenly both of them started to launch attacks at each other's head.

The redhead ducked and attacked with his EMR but was stopped by the other man's sword.

It looked like a normal katana if only it was a few feet shorter. Seriously! It was the longest sword that she had ever seen, but it somehow feels familiar. She forced her head to work and suddenly flashes of memories hit her head, followed by a flood of pain washing away all of her current thoughts.

Her heart throbbed painfully on her ribs, not to mention the war raiding her head, trying to take away her consciousness. She fell on her knees, eyes tightly shut, hands grasping at her head as if it could fall off any moment, panting and groaning at the slightest movement that she made. She was able to keep her body above the ground for a few moments before her whole body gave in and met the hard dusty ground.

* * *

Reno kicked the door open with the brunette's passed out body secured firmly in his arm.

"Upstairs, the same room as yesterday." Tifa ran upstairs, panic shrouding her whole conscious. She was definitely more panic than the previous time when the same thing happened, save for the suddenly and unexpected part.

"Gramps?" The redhead asked, hopping the stairs up swiftly.

"He's on the way." The older brunette replied and quickly paced pass him so that she could open the door for both of her unexpected guess.

"Tch, he chose to be slow at a time like-woops!" Reno stopped when he felt something bumped on the brunette's side and heard a thud.

Denzel groaned as he rubbed the sore spot on his now red nose and aching bottom. He had bumped on Sei's protruding hip bone and landed on his rear end.

"How's Sei neechan?" Marlene who was beside the still sitting boy chirped as she helped Denzel up to his legs.

"I don't know…she just fainted suddenly." Reno glanced an apologetic look to Denzel before walking again to Tifa who was already waiting in front of the door. He went in and placed the lifeless brunette on the same, plain white bed as the one that she had used 3 days ago during her previous stay.

"What happened?" Tifa finally broke the piercing silence as they watched the younger brunette's heaving chest behind the covers.

"We went to Midgar…she said that she wanted to try to remember what happened before she came here." He explained, his eyes still lock at the young brunette's form. "Then I fought this unknown weird guy who appeared near sector 7 and the next thing I know, she was already on the floor and the weird guy disappeared.

"What happened?" Doctor Rayne jogged in suddenly, not waiting for a reply before doing his job.

The redhead and older brunette just watched quietly as the doctor did his job, checking on her pulse, pupil reaction, blood pressure and many other things which were beyond their comprehension. After he finished fidgeting with her body, the experienced doctor placed his apparatus back to his black leather bag and sighed.

"So, what's the problem?" Tifa asked, snapping the redhead who was too sucked in his trance of observing Sei's face.

"She's just exhausted and…there's, um… alittlecaseofMakopoisoning." He blurted out.

"Wha- I mean, pardon? She's exhausted and?" Tifa said, cutting off the redhead who was just about to open his mouth.

"Mako poisoning, not a severe one though." Doctor Rayne said again, this time more slowly and sure.

Tifa and Reno cocked an eyebrow, turned their face and looked at each other with an are-we-thinking-of-the-same-thing look before chorusing in unison. "WHAT?!"

"We went to Midgar, but we were far from the reactors and HQ!" This time Reno was the one who said first, silencing Tifa who was just about to open her mouth.

"I thought the Lifestream level in Midgar had dropped a lot since 2 years ago." Tifa added some more explanation.

"Yes, mako poisoning is a really rare case now, Mako are not produced anymore and they announced that the Lifestream level had really dropped down but I assume that she doesn't know about the Lifestream at all when she came here, right?"

"Yes, she never heard about the Lifestream until she came here." Tifa voluntarily said for Reno who was still in his stupor of thinking that mako poisoning means that she will end up like Cloud who once suffered a dire case of it.

"Then the only reason I can think of is, that she was never exposed to Mako and just a little in her system proved to be a little too hard for her body."

"Is she…going to be okay?" The older brunette asked hesitantly, afraid of the answer that she will get. She knew this disease too well, it was the disease which almost took Cloud from her…she was the one who took care of him that time, she watched as he turned into a body of mess, unable to speak on his own, eat on his own or do anything of his own free will. Hell! She wasn't even sure if he could recognize her and his friends when he was just mumbling and moaning incoherently like a new born infant who was just new and out of place in this world.

"She just needs some more rest and she'll be fine. Don't worry it's not a serious case."

Both of the agitated pair chorused again, a deep sigh of relieve this time. Reno ran a hand through his crimson locks; eyes still lock on the unconscious brunette as if she could disappear into thin air if he let down his gaze for a second. He sure was glad, he couldn't really imagine it if she really had a serious case of the mind corrupting disease.

Reno just stared at the unconscious brunette blankly, while Tifa pulled the elder doctor out of the room. They walked out silently, closed the door behind them and passed the narrow hallway to the staircase. Doctor Rayne noticed something in the corner of his eyes, stopped and took a step back towards the object.

He picked up a red leather wallet which was sitting idly on the corridor in front of the stairs. "Tifa, is this yours?" He called out to the brunette who was already descending down the stairs.

"No, that must be Sei's. She must've dropped it when Reno bumped on Denzel." An edge of a piece of paper was sticking out from the crimson wallet invitingly, as if it was telling its founder to take a peek of it.

Doctor Rayne tugged and slowly pulled the white paper out of sheer curiosity, it was the picture of Sei in the middle of a woman and a man. The man had same hair color with the girl next to her and was smiling from ear to ear. The doctor's lips parted slightly, a gasped escaped as he looked with wide eyes at the picture, a name immediately echoed through his head. "Kyle…?"

* * *

"Ugh…" Sei groaned and stirred.

Reno just kept staring at her clean face, her spotless or actually plain face. His hand absent mindedly ran through her temple, trying to ease the frown on top of her brown eye brows and moved to her cheeks, jaws and neck before retracting his hand in embarrassment.

_This isn't really happening, right?_ He thought to himself. Staring and touching an unconscious girl? The only time he had stared at a sleeping female figure were the mornings after his many one night stands, when he leaves immediately after he fucked them just for his pleasure.

"What the hell is happening…?" He thought out aloud to himself. He's changing just because of the frail looking girl in front of him. He changed into a mushy guy, full of what he thought as useless emotions just a week ago. What is it called again? Pity? Care? Or even maybe…love…a word which was never there or actually erased from his dictionary a long time ago. Well, the only one thing he knew now was that all this thinking made him more and more damn confused about his own feelings.

Sei shot up into a sitting position, panting. Sweat drenched her whole body and tears threatened to run out anytime.

"Sei? You okay?" The redhead asked with concern to the still dazed brunette.

She turned her head slowly so that she was facing Reno who was sitting on a chair beside her bed. Finally, hot fresh tears escaped her emerald orbs, the back of her hands immediately reached for her eyes to stop the flow which didn't show any hint of stopping soon.

"Oi, what's wrong?" Reno placed a hand on her trembling shoulder and moved to the bed, sitting right in front of her.

She didn't respond. Her dried throat was not in any condition to do anything except sob, sob and sob.

The Turk finally sighed and pulled her into an embrace. He patted her back and cooed. "Ssshh, it's okay, it's just a nightmare. Tell me, what's wrong?"

The sobbing brunette tried to calm herself by taking deep breaths but instead a whimper passed her throat.

"Sei, you said it yourself yesterday. It's better to let it out than keeping it in your own self and break down in the end."

She shook her head on his shoulder and finally managed to say. "No, it's not, Reno. It's not just a nightmare…I remember…everything."

"Remember-"

"Sei, I need to talk to you." Doctor Rayne suddenly stepped in, cutting the redhead's curiosity.

The couple immediately broke apart from their embrace and straightened up. Seira rubbed her eyes and face to remove any trail of tears and Reno stood up beside the bed.

"This man here, is it your father?" The older man said, raising a photo on his hand, his tone slightly wavering but dead serious.

She squinted to get a better look of the picture before recognizing the slightly crumpled piece of memory. "Yes, that's a picture of me, dad and mom-"

"What's your father's name?"

"Kyle Howard. Anything wrong, doc?"

"This can't be happening…" He sighed and placed a hand on his temple to ease his tensed muscles.

"Doc, what's wrong?"

"Listen, Seira. Kyle Howard, the man in this picture…or your dad, is my son who disappeared 20 years ago."

Seira just sat still, mouth slightly parted. "W-what…? WHAT?!" She finally exclaimed when the weight of realization finally hit her. "You're dad's dad, which means…you're my grandfather?"

"That's the only logic in my head."

"B-b-but that means, dad was born here and…and…how did he get to the other world?" She stuttered as she tried to piece the bits of new information one by one.

"I don't know how but I think I know a way to get you back."

Reno just stood dumbly, listening to the new found relative's conversation, when suddenly the brunette said something which forced him out of his stupor.

"Doc, can I stay with you?" She blurted out.

"Of course, we need to sort out a lot of things and I really need help to find that book to send you back to your world." They conversed lightly as if it was just a normal talk between best friends who wanted to move in together.

"W-wait! Sei, what are you talking about?" The redhead finally found the words that was stuck in his throat.

"I'm going to move in with Doctor Rayne." She averted her face towards the door, away from the redhead's gaze and not showing any emotions towards the harsh words that she was going to say. "Sorry, Reno…but I can't live with a…a killer"

The next thing that was heard was doors slamming forcefully to its frame, motorcycle engine roared to life and a few gasped from people who evaded the Turk's crazy acceleration.


	12. What was lost

_A/N: Here's chap 12! Seira's dream will be revealed in the next chapter so just wait for my slow writing pace._

_Big hugs and thanks to Anexi and bibx for the long and flattering review :p_

_Enjoy and please leave a review to tell me how the story is going on!_

_Disclaimer: I don't and never own Reno and the other FF7 character except my own OC's like Sei, Rayne, etc._

* * *

"I can't live with a…a killer."

Reno who was too caught in his rage didn't notice the brunette's obviously wavering voice and attempts to avoid eye contact with him. His hands balled into fists, veins slightly protruding out of his pale skin. He slammed the door behind him and sped up through the crowded road, ignoring passer by's curses and gasps at his reckless driving.

Sei just stared at her lap and flinched at the door's poor fate in Reno's hand. The cover on top of her leg suddenly became damp as hot fresh tears streamed down without permission from her burning eyes, some collecting on her chin before dripping down and some directly poured down from her cheeks. She led out a half hearted laugh and quickly rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. "Some dust entered my eyes."

Tifa who had been watching behind the door stepped in and pulled the younger brunette into a motherly embrace. She patted Sei's back and cooed, telling her to calm down and take a rest.

The now wailing girl hugged back and mumbled chains of words as if it was a mantra which could heal the two broken hearts. "Sorry…I'm so…so sorry…Reno." Yes, she had helped him deal with his past but now she was the one who had broken it and healing it again wouldn't be an easy job.

Tifa finally succeeded to make the younger brunette lie down and grabbed the confused Sorcerer out of the room, leaving the still sobbing girl. "Doc, let her stay here first, I'll tell Cloud to bring her to your place when she's better."

"Okay, just…take care of her." He said before descending down the stairs and leaving Tifa who was still staring at the closed door of the crying brunette.

The next few hours was awfully peaceful, she had told Denzel and Marlene to make no noise for Sei neechan to rest and after 5 times of eavesdropping the door in 2 hours the room was finally silent.

* * *

How those words pained him. 'Killer' a title which had stuck to him for more than half a decade. He took a sharp turn and drove to the main street of Edge, to a bar called Johnny's Heaven after realizing that returning to his apartment would be a hell wrong decision

His apartment was the place that he rather stay away from for now…it was the place where they had spent most of their times together, the place where her presence lingers the strongest, he would've immediately lose his sanity and went berserk if he went home now, and since he was off duty, all of the damages he caused would be bailed out from his own wallet and he rather chose to spend it on drinks rather than renovating his apartment.

The Young Turk swirled the bike and stopped abruptly with a screech, just inches away from the makeshift fences of the open bar. It was a small bar which consists of a stall and some tables and chairs. But what made it famous among the Turks was because of its not so bad menu and how empty it gets most of the time. Unlike Seventh Heaven which was always full at business hours, which mean more stares from drunkards muttering behind your back.

Reno strode in, glad to find the bar empty as usual.

"Hey, Reno! What is it today? Usual?" A redhead bartender shouted out behind the stall.

"Make it double." He replied without looking to his attendant and walked to a table with a familiar back facing him.

"Job is done?" He sat next to the bald Turk and asked, receiving a nod from him. The redhead leaned back on his chair and sighed.

"What's wrong?" The usually silent Turk asked, breaking the silence which he worshiped for the first time in his life.

"Hm? What do you mean?" Reno cocked an eyebrow, looked at his partner and began to comprehend his face behind the trademark shades. After all these years of being paired up with the bald Turk in different kind of missions, either hard or easy, seems like the only lesson that the redhead learned was how to read expressions behind shades and nothing else.

"…" Rude was serious, with a little concern written on his face and didn't show any hint of a reply to his partner's obvious question.

Reno cursed inwardly to himself, for letting himself figured out that fast by his partner. If Reno could read Rude's expression like a poem which just needed a little interpretation to be understood, Rude could read Reno's expression and body language just as easy as reading an open book.

"Here you go! Enjoy." The bartender cheered cheerfully, breaking the awkward silent between the two Turks before placing an empty glass filled with a chunk of ice and a fully filled tumbler on the table.

The redhead poured the amber liquid to the 3 inches tall glass and took a sip before running his hand through his fiery red locks in agitation. "A lot happened…" He sighed as he enjoyed the burning sensation in his throat.

"Seira…?" Rude cracked a word with his low but strong voice.

He brought the transparent glass to his lips and stopped. "Yeah, she…she hates me." He emptied the whole glass in one gulp, trying to erase her still vivid voice from his head. _"I can't live with a…a killer."_

Rude responded with a raised eye brow and stared at the redhead with a look that Reno had subtitled as a What-the-fuck? Look.

"What? Don't believe me? She said it herself, can't live with a killer like me. Ask your ex-crush ass killer or gramps if you don't believe me."

Rude ignored his partner's comment about his ex-crush Tifa, still staying silent while taking a sip of his own drink and enjoying the phrase 'Silence is golden' while he still had the chance or more accurately 'The calm before the storm'.

* * *

"What the hell is wrong with her?" Reno shouted. His eyes half opened and his hand pointed aimlessly to his bald friend next to him.

Rude simply dodged his drunken friend's swaying hand while sipping coolly at his own drink.

The moon had switched position with the sun, stars twinkling cheerfully, ignoring the depressed male couple on the open bar below them.

"First, she said it was all okay…and then she left…me…bitch" The redhead ended his ramblings by dropping his head with a loud thud on the table and stood still. One of the three empty tumblers fell to its side and whirled down the table.

The silent Turk raised an eyebrow at the sudden silent and pulled his partner's surprisingly neat ponytail, revealing the redhead's sleeping face, a drool already forming on the corner of his mouth. He sighed heavily, released the red locks and received a loud thud as his annoying partner's head once again landed on the hard wooden table. Tonight was going to be a carry-the-drunk-redhead-home night again.

* * *

The bar was empty, Monday night had been a day off for Seventh Heaven since its reopening. Tifa stood behind the counter and Cloud sat on a stool in front of her.

"Why did she say that?" Cloud asked to his companion who had just finished telling the incidents of the evening.

"I don't know…but whatever her reason is, I'm sure she had chosen the best for both of them." Tifa sighed and replied. She also wanted to know the reason behind the young brunette's action but seeing her cry like that was enough to prove that she didn't mean her words for real.

"Tch, women." The blond muttered under his breath.

"What? Without women, men are nothing." Tifa crossed her arms in front of her chest and glared playfully to her boyfriend. They started shoving each other playfully before someone descended down the stairs, dragging them back to their previous topic.

"Sei, how are you feeling?" The older brunette was the one who was able to open her mouth first.

"I'm fine…" Sei replied, her voice turning out huskier than she had expected.

Tifa looked at the girl that she barely recognized in front of her. Seira would look perfectly fine to other people who had never met her, but for Tifa she looked like a whole lot different person or persona at least.

Her eyes were not as bright as before, her smile obviously faked, a light frown almost knitting her brows together, shoulders almost visibly slumped and her voice…her usually cheerful voice turned hoarse and low, mainly because of the crying she had went through but she looked like someone who had lost their youth, just in one evening.

"You must be hungry, Tifa will make you dinner." Cloud said to the brunette who was gazing the whole bar.

"No thanks, Cloud, Tifa, I'm not that hungry and it's almost 10-" She opened her mouth halfway and stopped hesitantly.

"What's wrong, Sei? Is there anything you need?" The older brunette asked with obvious concern on her voice.

"…Doctor Rayne?"

"He went home. I told him that Cloud will take you there once you're better."

"Can you take me now?" Sei blurted out, receiving narrowed eyes and questioning looks.

"Now? Are you sure? I think you better take more rest." Tifa's maternity kicked in to action and started lecturing the stubborn girl but before she realized, Sei's fake smile was gone and her face dropped down. Tifa opened and closed her mouth hesitantly before she stopped and covered the younger brunette's hands with her own.

"Tifa…please…" The brunette finally whispered, face still facing the floor.

"Seira, why did you say that to Reno?" The inevitable question finally came, Sei would have been ripping her fingers one by one out of habit if Tifa was not holding her hand. She straightened up and looked up directly to the older brunette's burgundy eyes.

"Why? I said that because I don't want to live with him anymore." She tilted her head and said innocently, a fake persona to cover her now empty heart.

Tifa was shocked at how good the young girl could mask her real expressions but she was dealing with Tifa here. Tifa who was used to Cloud's silent troubles made reading people's true emotion a simple task for her."…Okay, do what you think is right. Cloud will take you now." She sighed; giving up to the stubborn girl's persistent and said.

* * *

The 20 minute journey turned10 minutes with the combination of Cloud and Fenrir his bike. The ride was silent, save for the noisy wind throwing her hair in every direction possible. She couldn't see the zapping sceneries like her previous ride with the redhead since Cloud needed his goggles and didn't have any spares for her.

Cloud dropped her to the clinic and left after ensuring that she had gotten into the house with Doctor Rayne.

"Get some rest now. We can talk tomorrow." The Sorcerer instructed, ushering the brunette into a room. "This is Kyle's-I mean your father's room, you can use it as much as you like." He urged his new found grand daughter to come in and waited as she observed the room.

It was a typical boy's room which consisted of a single bed on the farthest corner of the room, a study desk across it, a small box full of colorful shining crystal orbs that they call materia and a Chocobo figurine and a picture of a woman stood above the nightstand right beside the bed which was covered by blue sheets. "About what you said earlier…do you really know a way to send me back?" Sei turned around and asked hesitantly.

"Yes, most probably yes. We'll talk about this tomorrow okay. You need a lot of rest, so don't worry about it now and just sleep. Good night, Sei." The raven haired man said, already sensing fatigue from the brunette right from the beginning of her arrival.

"Okay, good night, Doc." She replied, stifling a yawn after the mention of a slumber. In fact she was really tired, even her previous awakening in Seventh Heaven was a rather forceful one. She had to stir herself enough will power and strength to raise her body up and not fall back to the comfortable bed.

As soon as the door was closed, she fell to the soft bed and found herself back to the nice and warm darkness surrounding her.

* * *

Days passed by quickly, Seira kept herself busy either in the archive room or clinic helping her grandfather so that her mind doesn't drift to a certain redhead and without notice it had been the second evening of her stay in her new temporary house.

"Are you sure it's really here?" The young brunette asked for what seemed like the twentieth time in that day to the patient old man beside her. Both of the relatives were sitting on the floor in the archive room, piles of aged, yellow books stacking up around them.

"Yes, your dad was grounded here when he disappeared, it must be here." Doctor Rayne sighed before answering.

"20 years old and still grounded, what a father he is. Wait till I tell Kei about this." She smirked for a moment before going back to the current book in front of her.

The archive room was just a simple, 4 walled, white painted room surrounded by bookshelves sticking on the walls with some occasional gaps for windows. The bookshelves were full of ancient books which were illegible for Sei, but she was still supposed to help see and report if there was anything suspicious.

"I was harsh to him." The old man broke the comfortable silent and began to reminisce. "After their mother's death, I became strict and harsh to him."

"Their?" She chimed in puzzlement.

"Hadn't I told you? Your father have a brother, I have two sons." He explained plainly, without any sign of emotions.

"Really? No one told me. So, where is he now?"

"He ran away from house, a few years after your father disappeared." His frowned at the memory and turned his face fully on the book, trying to gesture that it was not a really good topic that he wanted to discuss about now.

Seira picked up the signal and stayed silent for a few moments before the doorbell rang, once. "I'll open the door." She ran willingly, running away from the piling books which was really boring her to death.

The brunette opened the door a few inches apart to take a peek and immediately flung the door open as she looked at the unexpected guess.

"Rude?" She stared at the dark skinned man from head to toe as if he could change into someone else if she looked more carefully. "What are you doing here?" She asked when she was sure that her tired eyes weren't fooling her.

"I need to talk…" He answered shortly, as usual.

"Come in, I'll call Doctor Rayne." She immediately turned around and before she can walk away a firm but not too strong grip on her wrist stopped her tracks.

"I want to talk to you."

"Me?" She pointed at herself and asked. A nod from her unexpected guest was all she received. "Okay, wait inside and I'll come in a minute." Seira let him stepped in first, before she closed the door and walked to the archive room, informing the elder about the unexpected guest. She returned to the living room not more then a minute that she had promised and sat on the two seated couch beside the three seated sofa that Rude was seated in currently. "So, what do you want to say?"

"…" Rude stayed quiet for a while, still thinking about the right words carefully in his mind but Sei cut him off before he was able to utter a single word. "If it's about Reno, I don't want to talk about it". She said again, breaking the awkward silent.

"Why did you say that to him?" Finally, Rude opened his mouth for the second time. His voice was low, soft but at the same time strong, she flinched at the question and quickly masked her face with her expressionless persona, not realizing that her fingers were already brushing each other out of her nervous habit.

"I don't want to see him again. It's just as simple as that, why can't anyone understand that-"

"You're lying." Rude immediately countered, shutting up the agitated brunette.

Seira sighed and leaned her whole upper torso's weight to her elbow which was propped up against her knees. She buried her face to her hands and sighed again. She knew that it was useless to fight against Rude. He was a quiet person but if he had made up his mind and spoke up, he would be even more headstrong than Reno or anyone else that she knew.

"He'll be in danger if he stay with me, that previous guy who he fought with was the one who sent me here." She filled her with all the information she knew, hoping that it will satisfy him and stop digging out her unwanted feelings.

"…" The bald Turk just stayed silent, without changing his emotion after hearing her explanation, unsatisfied.

"What?" The brunette finally broke the tormenting silent.

"You know that Reno is not that weak. What's the other reason?" He spoke slowly and sternly.

Seira sighed for what seems like the thirtieth time that day and finally decided to speak everything out to the silent listener. "He had a nightmare, just a day before I left. I woke him up and he told me that I was gone and nowhere to be found. He said that I was maybe kidnapped by some of his enemies, but I think nothing like that had happened, I must've left and returned to my own world…" She paused and sighed again, recalling the memories of her last day at the redhead's apartment. When she woke the man who was murmuring loudly in his sleep, his whole body covered in sweat, panting as if there was no tomorrow, fist clenched tightly but the most disturbing detail was his expression. His sad face and how it brightened up as soon as he saw her.

"The longer we stay together, the harder will it be to forget." She continued, looking down and avoiding Rude's stare.

"He…Reno, doesn't look too good now."

Seira jerked her head up to ask what his last sentence meant but only found the once again empty living room and the front door ajar.


	13. I love you

A/N: Chapter 13 is up! Glad I can finish this despite of the piles of untouched home works on my desk.

This story is coming to an end, about 2 or 3 chapters more and it's done, so I'll appreciate if I can get more reviews, please. :D

Big thanks and hugs for Anexi, bibx and divine-insanity-x! Love you all and your reviews, so keep doing it again please!

* * *

_Seira twitched her cramped fingers and straightened up her numb arms. She groaned as her cheeks met an icy cold, hard surface and stirred herself up._

_The brunette turned her head sideways to get a better look of her surroundings but was met by nothing but a white blur. She blinked hard and rubbed her eyes, focusing her eyes to the white wall and brown tables around her._

_Suddenly, her phone rang in her bag, snapping her out of her trance and sending her hands rummaging through her rather unorganized bag. She found her phone and inserted her thumb between the gaps to flip it open._

_5 unread messages_

_"Shit." She muttered. What had happened? It was almost 10 and she had just woken up in school._

_Sender: Dad_

_Sei, mom is coming tonight, don't go anywhere after school._

_Sender: Dad_

_Hey, are you home yet. I'll pick mom on my way home, you better be there when we reach._

_Sender: Dad_

_Where are you? We reached home, get here fast._

_Sender: Dad_

_Sei, where are you? Why are you not picking up the phone or replying._

_Sender: Dad_

_Hey, mom is worried, come home fast!_

_She returned from her inbox and was immediately greeted by her missed call list._

_30 missed calls._

_"Fuck." She muttered this time and immediately hit the call button on her recent miss caller._

_"Sei! Where are you?!" The receiver immediately responded after one ring._

_"Sorry dad. I fell asleep in school. I'm walking home now." Sei busily threw all of her stuffs on the table to her bag with one hand and quickly walked out of her class._

_"You made everyone worried, just wait and I'll pick you up." She heard a sigh of relieve on the other end and paced hastily through the stairs, almost tumbling on the process._

_"Okay, I'll be waiting in front of the gate." She said before she snapped the phone shut and threw it in her bag. _

_It was silent, not even the usual annoying cats and crickets could be heard. Sei kept shifting at her position and looked back and front as if something would show up anytime if she kept her guard down._

_Finally, she decided to walk through the way that her dad would pass by to school. There was a shorter way that she could use to walk home but since her dad would be driving, he would be using the main road instead of the small alleyway behind her school._

_She walked hastily, eyes staring at the clear road in front of her, wanting to reach home and get out of the creepy silent as soon as possible. Some road lights were flickering madly and her footsteps somehow sounded louder than usual. _

_Suddenly, she jerked her head up and stopped. The echoes of her footsteps also stopped just a moment after. "Shit!" She cursed in her mind and began to walk again, calmly and trying not to panic at the stranger who was planning to do god knows what to her. _

_Dad, where are you? Hurry! She kept thinking in her mind, repeating it endlessly as if every time she said it could bring her dad a second faster._

_Everything happened so fast that without her notice, her legs were already accelerating and running at top speed but the stranger was also mimicking her steps and approaching her trembling form._

_A hand grabbed her shoulder and all she could do was scream as loud as possible till her mouth was muffled by the impact of her face with a wall-no, it was someone, someone's chest. _

_Another hand grasped her shoulder and turned her body around by force. She jerked her eyes open just in time to see a long blade passed between her and the stalker; a man who was panting through his thick lips, with a big red nose, squinted brown eyes, black, unkempt, oily and curly locks and a messed up brown T-shirt and blue pants._

_She was still dazed after the impact and all that had happened. And the next thing she saw was the stranger who was screaming and kneeling in front of her, blood pouring from the place where his hand should be hanging from. _

_The drunken looking man clutched his wrist, screaming uncontrollably at his now missing hand._

_Slowly Sei's other senses revived from its previous shock. The stench of rustic blood filled her nostrils and she felt hot liquid trickling over her shoulder._

_"Silent" A low and enchanting voice came from the man behind her. The panic brunette opened her mouth to scream but none came, she looked down to her shoulder and found the source of the liquid; the stalker's missing hand. Seira frantically pried the still warm hand from her shoulder in horror._

_Blood was everywhere, on her uniform, flowing out of the man's now hollow wrist and pooling on the asphalt road in front of her. She could feel bile running up to her throat, her eyes blurred by the tears spilling out, legs wobbling, almost unable to support her trembling frame._

_"Sleep" The man behind her said again and her body immediately fell limp to the hard ground._

Seira jumped up on her bed, panting heavily, cold sweat sticking all over her frame and face. Since she remembered everything, her nights had always been haunted by the memories of what had happened. _Ignorance is bliss _She thought to herself and fell back to the soft bed once her breath had stabilized.

* * *

The brunette paced hesitantly in front of an apartment door, a very familiar door for her since she came to Gaia, Reno's apartment.

She stared at the classic wooden door for a while before stretching her hand out to the door bell and snatched it back before she even got a chance to touch the small button.

Her objective was just to take back her bag and uniform, not that she was worried with the redhead after Rude's previous comment about him.

_"He…Reno, doesn't look too good now."_

Yes, her aim was just to take her bag and go home without disturbing Reno, so she decided to just sneak in and leave without meeting him but as soon as she spotted the spare key and opened the door…her psyche kicked in and decided to change her plan.

The pungent smell of alcohol filled her nostril at the first air she inhaled from the room. She walked in through the hallway and reached the living room. Cans of Beer scattered around the sofa and the floor around it. She opened her mouth, wanting to curse and rant at the redhead's laziness but immediately stopped and moved to the kitchen.

The open kitchen was far worst than she had ever expected. Piles of dirty dishes flooded the sink, cartons of pizza and other takeouts were out of its place in the bin.

_How the hell did he turn this place just in 2 days? _Sei was pissed and what made it worst were the uncountable packages of instant noodles lying all over the floor near the garbage bin. She immediately walked in and checked the fridge, discovering that the leftovers she had left were untouched which made her more and more flushed with annoyance.

Now, her new aim was to clean the mess up and maybe leave a note of how to take care of himself properly. Not that she thinks that Reno would listen, but at least it was better than nothing.

Seira walked passed the mahogany dinner table and stopped for a while, reminiscing the times that they had spent together, with the other Turks or just both of them. She shook her head sideways to clear up her mind and walked to the master room.

The door creaked painfully as she pushed it open. The redhead was lying unconscious on the bed, still with his usual Turk uniform; black trousers, unzipped black jacket and halfway unbuttoned long sleeve white shirt.

She immediately retrieved her black school bag which was lying idly beside the night stand and hastily tiptoed out when a groan stopped her halfway to the door. The brunette immediately turned her face and stared at the pale face which she had avoided looking at since she stepped into the silent room.

Seira stepped nearer to the redhead in curiosity and grimaced at Reno's certainly unhealthy countenance; his cheeks were flushed and his lips were pale, dry and slightly trembling. She reflexively dropped her hand to his forehead and ran out after feeling his fever.

The brunette came back with a basin of water and a small, neatly folded towel. She placed the basin on the night stand, dipped the towel to the icy cold water and tightly squeezed it with her hand before gently placing it on the sick Turks' forehead.

"Sorry" She whispered before she walked out and closed the door behind her back.

* * *

Reno's eyes fluttered open, the moist cloth on his head slipped down next to his pillow. He groaned and scratched the back of his head. Who came? He thought and stared at the basin on his nightstand. Elena? No way, the house wouldn't be this quiet if she was here. Rude? He wouldn't come into the house without permission. Tseng? He must be still holed up in his office.

The redhead shook his head sideways at his current thoughts which led him to a certain brunette, just to receive a great headache. He sat up but immediately fell back as his blood rushed up his head and blurred his vision.

Reno slowly stood up and walked forward. He grabbed the wall and everything near him to support his poor legs and as soon as he opened the door, the smell of familiarity filled his nostrils.

A part of him wanted to see her but another part of him denied. He dragged himself as fast as he could towards the smell of porridge, to his kitchen which shouldn't have taken eternity and saw what he actually hoped for.

Reno just wanted to jump forward and hold her, hug her, kiss her and feel her breath on his skin but his pride kicked in and made him put his hard persona on. "What are you doing here?" He panted and said as loud as he could.

Sei immediately turned back from the porridge that she was stirring in the pot above the stove and saw the redhead who was leaning on the wall, trying his best not to fall over his own weight. "Reno…"

"I said, what are you doing here, bitch?! Didn't you say it yourself! You don't wanna live with me anymore! A killer, right?!" He raised his tone with anger and felt his eyelids grew heavier after every word he spoke.

The brunette just looked at the white ceramic floor in silence, fighting back tears which were threatening to fall.

"Get out…I said, get out!"

The last order had officially ticked the chick off; she cocked her head up and glared at the redhead "Okay! I'll get out if you want! And then what?! You can't even stand on your own feet! Let alone take care of yourself! Now get your sorry ass back to bed and rest! I'll get out by myself as soon as you can take care of yourself!" If looks could kill, Reno would have been sprawled on the floor.

The redhead just stared back for a moment before he dragged himself back to his room in defeat. She was right, he couldn't even stand properly, let alone take care of himself. His head was spinning so wildly, he couldn't even remember to take any drugs or food to help him gain strength. He had just lain in bed all day, stared at the ceiling and drifted back to sleep after his eyes and mind were tired of reminiscing everything which had happened.

Reno finally reached his room and fell back on his comfortable king sized bed. He closed his eyes and let exhaustion took over. The redhead didn't realized that his stomach had been yearning for food since a long time but after he took a breath of the delicious aroma of spice outside his room, his full senses was now feeling the starvation.

He closed his eyes and relaxed, knowing that he couldn't do anything except wait. The door creaked open and the tempting aroma immediately filled the room. A small thud was heard as something was placed on the nightstand and a warm smooth surface covered the back of his hand before a sigh was heard.

"I'm sorry Reno…you're never a killer." Seira whispered and gently squeezed the fully conscious redhead's hand. She gasped when her hand was suddenly pulled by force and her body was thrown to the bed.

Reno pinned both of her hands to the headboard just with one of his hand and straddled her on the bed. "What's wrong with you? First you say this, then you say that and then you…you, what's wrong with you?!" He shouted in a low tone, confusion and frustration glistening in his aquamarine eyes.

"I…I…" The brunette stammered, unable to answer him. Damn, she mentally kicked herself for being so careless and not noticing that he was still awake. Lying to him was not a really hard thing but in a proximity and compromising position like this, with his eyes right in front of her it was twenty times more difficult to.

"SEIRA!!" Reno shouted louder this time, Seira jumped at her position and immediately hid her face on her sleeves, already feeling tears on her cheeks. "Sei? Why? Just tell me why." The redhead cooed softly this time.

"I also never wanted this to happen, but we can't stay like this." She sobbed on her sleeves and said in a muffled voice.

"Hey, look at me, what do you mean?" Reno cupped her cheek with his other hand and asked gently.

"If we stay like this…it'll hurt more when I…I leave." Seira managed to say between sobs and finally let the tears flow freely once she felt the mental weight load free from her shoulder.

"Hey, stop crying, you look better when you smile." He tried to smile a reassuring smile but failed miserably at the job. More sobs and Reno couldn't take it anymore. He kissed the corner of her eyes where her tears came from and slowly moved down to her cheeks, jaw, extra attention on her neck which earned him a moan and finally his full face was on top of her breast.

She felt the trails of kisses that he left along her face and neck, a small moan escaped her lips instead of the sobs which were previously unstoppable, her tears ceased a little and soon the redhead's whole weight was against her body. Sei pulled her hands which were surprisingly released from the strong grip and looked down at the suddenly quiet redhead.

A muffled snore erupted and the brunette smiled after rubbing her eyes from the remnants of sadness. She carefully moved away from the bed and wrapped the covers around the man who was deep in his peaceful slumber.

Seira watched Reno's trademark red, flaming hair and tattoo on his cheek bones before she went out and closed the door behind her. Gawd, she really is going to miss him a lot.

* * *

Reno slowly opened his eyes and stood up, feeling better than the last few days. He flashed a toothy grin as he remembered last night's event and walked out, expecting to meet up with the brunette.

He eagerly pushed the door open but was met by the silent living room instead of the sound of her usual flip flops, any cooking utensils or humming's by his remedy, Seira.

The redhead scratched his back and walked to the dinning table which was partly covered by an umbrella style cover. He lifted the cover up, revealing an array of color lacking foods and a piece of paper partly hidden below one of the plates.

Reno picked the paper from the table and read it carefully. All he wanted now was to meet Sei, talk to her and clear everything off and he had a great feeling that the letter was left by her.

His fingers trembled around the sheet of paper, eyes went wide, mouth agape and fear soon filled his whole countenance. He quickly ran out, slamming the door close without bothering to lock the door to his apartment.

* * *

"You sure you want to do this now?" The elder doctor inquired.

"Yes, the faster the better." Sei quickly countered, not wanting to think anymore. She knew that the more she thought about it the more chances will she regret the choice that she had chosen.

"I won't be able to stop once I start." Doctor Rayne asked once again as if it could change the brunette's stubborn mind.

"I know, just send me quickly." She pleaded to the elder man with her puppy eyes.

It was not the puppy eyes which softened the old man but her emerald irises which looks exactly like his long lost son and deceased wife. He gave in to the stubborn teen and sighed in exasperation loudly. "Okay, move back and don't stand behind this line." The raven haired man took a chalk from the table behind him and traced a circle on the wooden floor around Seira.

Sei backed up to the middle of the one meter diameter circle and watched as Doctor Rayne took a book from the same table where the chalk had been and immediately flipped to one of the bookmarked page. "Thank you...grandpa."

The sorcerer smiled before he stretched his palm outward to the brunette's direction and started mumbling incoherent words. His brown eyes grew blank and a barrier started to surround the brunette right where the white circle had been drawn around her.

The curious teen stepped forward and stretched her hand which was immediately met by a hard invisible wall. Right at the same moment the door flung open, revealing a panting redhead standing by the door.

She gasped and took a step back when Reno paced to reach her but stopped when his hand was halted by an invisible force.

"Sei-"

"Reno, why did you come?" She cut the panting redhead before he was even able to say her name.

"Seira please, don't go now. Give me two days-no, you can go tomorrow, or anytime, but not now, please." He pleaded. How awkward those words felt in his mouth. He had never pleaded to anyone in his life, playfully, yes, but never seriously like now. The redhead sighed and rested his forehead on the hard barrier.

"Why should you come? You're just making it harder, Reno. Why can't you just forget and leave me be." She took a step forward and leaned her forehead on level with the Turk's lips, her hands resting on top of his bigger ones.

"I.-" He choked and paused before realizing that there was not many time left. "I…I love you." Reno finally confessed. It was just three words but why was it so hard to say.

"Reno…is it wrong if I told you to wait for me? But I'm not sure if I can come back or not." She whispered to the glass like barricade in front of her and slightly squeezed the hard obstacle which was parting the two lovers.

"No, nothing's wrong. Gramps stop this, plea-."

"It's no use, he won't be able to stop once he starts." Sei stopped Reno who was on his way to the Sorcerer and smiled. She took a step back to the center of the circle and raised her head up, finally revealing her face. She was smiling, but tears were falling from the corner of her eyes. "See you later, Reno."

Seira and the invisible barrier zapped out of his vision and disappeared, just leaving traces of smoke from the floor where she was previously standing at.

Doctor Rayne fell to his knees and coughed wildly, the book in his hand fell with a loud thud in the process. He jerked his head up once his breathing had ceased down and saw the redhead staring blankly at the fuming ground. The next thing he heard, was a scream of aguish and agony, followed by the brunette's name.


	14. Missing

_A/N: 6 reviews in a chapter YAY! You guys really made my day, big thanks and hugs for Anexi, Mity, Anonymous, divine-insanity-x, enyara and bibx . I really love you guys :D D D and will be waiting for more :p Thanks again and enjoy this chap!_

* * *

_Reno, I'm most probably not in Gaia anymore when you find this letter. Doctor Rayne found a way to send me back to my world and I need to get back home as soon as possible. I remembered everything after I fainted in Sector Seven and the man who you fought that time was the same man who sent me here, he's my father's younger brother, Doctor Rayne's second son…my uncle. Shocking, right? I also just knew this yesterday when I saw a picture of him in an old album which we found in the archive room. _

_Take care of yourself properly, don't eat too much of instant noodle or take outs, you'll really kill yourself or damage your stomach permanently if you continue eating too much of it. I left a lot of food in the fridge, so you just have to heat it before eating._

_Sorry for all the inconveniences that I had given you and thanks for the past 2 weeks that you had taken care of me. Say my sorry and thanks to Tifa and Cloud, and keep living well, Reno. You're a good guy._

_Seira _

* * *

"Any news?" The barmaid asked to one of her customer who was sitting on one of the stool across her.

"No, didn't hear anything." The redhead answered blandly, downing the last sip of his usual drink.

Tifa sighed in exasperation before she wiped her hands on a cloth behind the counter. "I'm sure she'll be back." She placed a hand on Reno's shoulder and looked at him with pity. He had just found someone who he loved for what seemed like the first time in his life, but she was already gone the moment he realized and accepted that foreign feeling.

"Thanks, Teef." He placed a few extra gills on top of the wooden counter and walked out of the miraculously not so crowded bar.

It had been two months after her departure and there were no signs or news about her return.

He entwined his hands behind his head and strolled along the dark alleyway, enjoying the peaceful silence, away from work and sympathetic people, just him and the cold breeze.

_He screamed out all of the air in his lungs, all of his emotions, anger to himself for being so weak and unable to do anything, fear of losing the one that he just learned to love and frustration of what he was supposed to do after the only ray of light for him to start a better life was gone. _

_Reno screamed her name, hoping that she would come back in his reach, but nothing happened. He could only hear his uncontrollable heart beat, heavy breath and gramps wild coughing behind him. _

_"Reno." Doctor Rayne called out once his breathing had ceased down. His voice snapped the redhead out of his trance. _

_"Get her back." He said monotonously._

_"I can't, she have to find her own way to come back here." He replied just as bland as the younger Turks'._

_"Then why did you send her?!" Reno raised his voice, feeling a bit of relieve after screaming to someone._

_"I told her but she still insisted…I think that's why she doesn't want you to come, farewells were never a good thing since a long time ago." He said calmly, gaining his composure as he stood up and straightened himself._

_"Sorry" The redhead closed his eyes and whispered guiltily. "So, what's this about your second son? Never heard of it from you." He took a deep breath and exhaled to clear up his mind before inquiring._

_"Well, no one asked and I would rather not talk about it so I don't think I had told anyone about him." The raven haired man answered monotonously but regret and sadness was shown clearly in his brown eyes. "I have two sons, Kyle and Recca. Kyle was 4 when my wife died shortly after his brother was born." The elder man took a deep breath and sighed before he continued again. "Kyle was-how do you say it? The type of happy-go-lucky person who always got good remarks from other people and Recca was always below his brother, he was more unsociable and shy compared to his brother but they were really close to each other…Kyle, would be a perfect son for any other parents except me…"_

_"Why?" The redhead urged The Sorcerer who was deep in his thought, finding a way to express his feelings in the right words to continue._

_"He couldn't use my family's powers, the powers of using magic without materia. After my wife's death I couldn't love them like before, especially Kyle. He had golden brown hair, jade eyes and all of her other features, he looks exactly like my wife and I…just couldn't bear seeing him, that's why Sei startled me when I first saw her, she looks exactly like him." A smile crept to his previously stiff face as he reminisced about his wife, son and grand daughter. It had been years after his wife's death and he had learnt to move on after both of his son left him. _

_"That day we, Kyle and I, had a bigger fight than the usual ones." He continued, his smile immediately turned into a frown. "I grounded him in the archive room with a pile of magic books which he hated and then he disappeared, gone from the sealed room without any traces. I mourned again and a year latter Recca left, leaving a letter saying that he went to find Kyle and will bring him back." Doctor Rayne stopped and stayed silent until Reno decided to end it._

_"Hmm, This Recca guy, he sounds like a good guy to me." _

_"He is a good boy. I don't know what made him do this."_

_"Wait, why didn't you go with Seira? You could meet your son and come back here, right." Reno articulated, his mind was now running every kind of reason that he could find to bring her back, he was desperate._

_"I can't, The Lifestream is the source of my magic power and Seira had never even heard about it so there are big chances that The Lifestream doesn't exist there."_

_"…"Silent took over once again but this time the redhead was left speechless, unable to think of anything rational again. _

* * *

Reno opened the door to his apartment and locked it once he was inside, leaving the key hanging on the keyhole. He walked to the couch and sat with a thump as his bottom hit the soft furniture. A sigh escaped his lips as he leaned his whole weight to his back and relaxed as memories took over again.

_Reno slouched comfortably on the couch, his legs crossed on top of the coffee table in front of him, head facing the white ceiling and hands sprawled across each side. _

_The surface of the leather couch bumped down as the weight of a brunette settles on it. The redhead cracked an eye open to find Sei humming the usual song and idly flipping one of the magazine on the table. _

_"Dinner's almost ready." She said cheerfully, still humming the song that he was getting used to hear._

_"Hmm" He closed his eyes back and grunted. _

_"Hey, where did you get these?" Reno flinched as he felt cold fingers traced the red tattoos on his cheek bone and Sei immediately retracted her hand back. _

_"It's just…an old souvenir." He said while reminiscing the faint memories in his head, his eyes still shut as flash backs of his old life before his career as a Turk began, kicked in. The tattoo was made just before he entered the Turks and left his slightly peaceful life. It was a below the standard life but it was fun, all the mischief that he did with his friends and all the rules that he had broken just for fun. He was happy and content with his life until the Turks found him and lured him with the impossible-to-resist paychecks. _

_"How long have you grown these?" She inquired again, tugging at his ponytail this time._

_"Hmm…" He opened his eyes and sat up straight this time. The redhead placed his hand on his chin, gesturing that he was deep in his thought. "About…10 years, I guess."_

_"Wow, that's…long." She raised an eyebrow in amusement and played for a while with his red hair before her eyes lit up in mischief. "Face that side, Reno." The brunette turned his broad shoulders away from her and started to braid his hair._

_"Oi, what are you doing?" All that Reno felt was just constant tugs at his hair, he tried to turn around but was always shoved back by her slender hands, forcing him to face where he was forced to. _

Reno smirked as he remembered the events of how his hair had ended up in a messy braid that day.

The redhead stood up and lazily walked to the kitchen. He opened his fridge and took out a can of cold beer. The beverage hissed as its content was exposed to the air and Reno sighed in contempt as the cold liquid filled his throat.

He leaned on the fridge and gazed at the dirty pot that he had used this morning to cook his unhealthy breakfast, instant noodle. True that he had eaten less of that unhealthy food but sometimes, not every morning, he couldn't stop thinking that maybe Sei would suddenly show up and scold him for not listening to her. It didn't matter if she scold or even punish him, the most important thing was her on his side, near him, somewhere near his reach so that he could always feel and enjoy her presence.

His gaze turned to the dining table which was located right in front of the open kitchen. The redhead smiled as he imagined himself and her sitting there. She pouted as he clutched his sides and laughed at her but the images disappeared as a knock erupted from the door.

"Geez" He muttered as he looked at the ticking clock on the wall which reads 11:50.

Reno pushed himself up and walked to the door through the hallway while cursing whoever who was coming at a time like this. He opened the door with force, ready to shout at whoever it was until his eyes were met by a familiar shade.

"Rude? What are you doing here?" He cocked an eyebrow and inquired.

"Just…passing by…" The masculine and silent Turk replied after a moment of silent.

The redhead grinned, wide enough it could be compared to a Cheshire cat's. "You worried about me?"

"No" Rude stared at the can in his hand.

"Don't worry, I won't do anything stupid, dude, go back to your apartment and rest. It's almost 12 and I need some sleep, kay?" He answered, ignoring Rude's quick reply. Reno patted his buddy's shoulder before closing the door behind him and headed to his bedroom.

He threw the already empty can at the bin outside his room and threw himself to the left side of the comfortable king sized bed.

She always slept at the right side of the bed. He pulled the idle pillow beside his head and embraced it, buried his head in it and inhaled the scent of his shampoo which she had used since she lived with him.

The redhead sighed heavily and covered his eyes with his forearm. He tried to remember her scent, comparing it with the pillow's which smelt different and ended up slamming it to the wall across him after a fruitless effort.

Was it just a dream? All the time which he had spent near her, he couldn't remember her scent and touch anymore, her weight on his arms were fading slowly but surely and the thought of forgetting about her was really killing him.

All that he remembered were her physical features, her pale skin, slim and tall frame just a few inches shorter from him, golden brown mid-curly locks and her captivating jade eyes.

He rarely remembered seeing green eyes in Midgar except for Aerith's but it was different. Aerith's eyes were strong dark green and hers were light green. The contrast was almost like Cloud's and his own, Cloud's irises were strong dark blue and his were greenish-light blue.

He still remembered her habits, fiddling and squeezing her fingers while nibbling her lower lips when she was nervous. She never used the idle hairdryer in his bathroom instead a single towel would always be wrapped around her hair after she washed it and when it was not dripping wet anymore, she would release her hair and let it dry further by itself.

After almost 2 weeks of living with her, he could surely tell that she was certainly clumsy on the appearance department, there weren't any make ups in her bag, not even a comb, just a small lip balm to help her dry lips and that was all.

When will she come back? 2 months without her was already like a living hell, during work hours he could make himself busy by accepting hard missions or bugging people but at home, nothing could get rid of her pleasant laugh or voice which was slowly fading in his head.

Sleep wasn't even a solution, sometime he would dreamt of her in her arms, laughing and smiling at their stupid antics while talking about their next meal's menu. In some nights he would dreamt about their last meeting, when she disappeared and decided to leave him to go back to her world.

Sometimes as soon as he opened the door of his apartment, he would imagined the aroma of dinner which she had prepared for him and her slender form wearing an apron in the kitchen while stirring the homemade food that she was preparing for him to feast on.

How he missed the food that she cooked for him, her voice, her laugh, her song that she hummed everyday, her touch on his hair and skin, her scolding, her smile, her scent and everything available of her.

How he wished that she was here, beside him, comforting him from the darkness which was starting to surround and eat him again. Her comforting words, touch and breathe near him.

* * *

6 months had passed after her departure, the first three months had been a torture but the next three passed by like a train. Time passed as fast as his old days, it was as if she had just left 2 days ago, he had even hit on several ladies again but he would still sacrifice and do anything to get her back to his side.

It was the usual night; Reno was approaching his apartment door after a nice lonely night in Johnny's Heaven. He was almost inserting his key into the keyhole when he stopped midway and stared at his door for a moment.

The redhead shifted his gaze to the post box beside his door and went into his Turk mode stance. He could know that his spare key was gone without checking it, someone was or is still inside his apartment.

He slowly grasped the door knob and turned it around. The door creaked open and his hands trembled around the cold EMR

This smell was something that he had longed since she had left, the aroma of spice…and _her_ comforting scent.

Reno stepped in cautiously and dropped his weapon on the couch. His feet accelerated after every step that he took and now he was running frantically to the kitchen just to find 2 empty plates in the usually empty dining table and a pleasant smell originating from a pot on top of the stove in the open kitchen.

Now, he was panting heavily, not from the short distance that he had covered in his house but because of his uncontrollably fast beating heart. The anxious Turk closed his eyes and inhaled the nostalgic aroma before slapping himself a few time to ensure that he wasn't dreaming.

It hurts, his hand was shaking like crazy and his strength was out of his control. He took a deep breath in and out before he continued his journey and the next stop was of course his room. That was the last place that he could thought of where she would be.

The highly anxious redhead hesitantly walked to his room and slowly pushed the door open.

And there she stood, running her fingers through the wooden surface of his nightstand. Her back was facing him and all he could see was her slender frame and golden brown locks which were longer than the last time he had remember seeing it.

His voice turned out to be smaller than expected, with his heart still pounding loudly against his chest. "Sei…" And the brunette immediately turned on her heels to the longing redhead.


	15. Miss You Too

A/N: Chap 15 is up! Sorry for the late update guys, I got a lil bit too carried on the finals and HOLIDAY! Gosh it's holiday again, at last after, all those mind blasting school works.

Anyhow, I suddenly got an idea for a sequel for this story and most probably will make one, so just wait for it after I'm done with this story which will probably be the next chap. Yes, the next chap is going to be the end, except…if I suddenly got an idea or whatever to add.

Shoutouts this time goes to Enyara, Bibx and Anexi! Love you guys and your reviews :DDD and don't forget to review again :p Enjoy!

* * *

For the first time in her life, someone who she likes had confessed to her, but why did it turn out like this? The redhead had really said it to her, the three magic words, he confessed, and she could see that he wasn't lying from his sincere eyes.

And now where was she? She was standing far, far away from him, her loved one and was in the verge of breaking down.

Seira fell on her knees and cried, shouting his name, hoping that she could be transported back immediately and embrace him. She knew it would hurt, that's why she said those things to him, so that he would stay away from her and she could forget about him (which she also knew was rather impossible) but what now? He came and confessed to her and everything just felt right for a moment until she realized that she was going away from him.

Regret, sadness and lost. She felt all of the emotions in her heart and cried out loud, unable to stop, even if she wanted to, but now she knew that crying it all out would be better than just keeping it in her heart and breaking down later.

The brunette stood up slowly and walked forward, while rubbing her eyes with the back of her hands, trying to stop the still flowing hot tears from her eyes. She had recognized the road as soon as she first saw the place; it was a playground just a few blocks away from her house.

Sei walked through the black asphalt road leading to her house. The stars were twinkling brightly despite her gloomy feeling and the road lights were also shining brightly, stinging further into her burning eyes.

For the first time in her life, her house' door bell sounded odd in her ears, it was different, different from his apartment's, weird, huh? She had lived in this house for more than 18 years of her life and not even two weeks in his house but it just felt right, because he was there.

It wasn't that she didn't miss her parents and everyone who she knew here. In fact, she missed them badly, but now, she could bear her terrible homesickness just to be by his side.

Another reason why she had chosen to come back home was because she had a bad feeling about Recca, her uncle who was behind all this. His motive was certainly not to harm her, he could do it when she was knocked out at their first meeting or just let that maniac stalker do anything that he wanted to but he took the time to send her to Gaia.

What was his main aim? She pondered it in her head again and again until she could only come up with one answer. The only person who they knew at the same time was her father, sending her to a different dimension, separating her from her family was not only a torture for her but also for her father.

The door slammed open and she grimaced as light washed over her and the dark surrounding. "Sei! You're back!" The voice sounded younger than what she had expected, it wasn't her father, instead, Kei was already holding her shoulder for dear life as if she would disappear if he let go of her.

"Kei?" Her voice sounded hoarser than she had expected and it showed clear evidence of fatigue.

"Sei, you okay?" He loosened his grip and started to check on her face, arms, legs and any part of her which wasn't covered with her school uniform.

"I-I'm okay." She stuttered at the sudden contact, Truth to be told, Kei…he was her first love back when she was in her 6th grade. They were first introduced when she was in 5th grade and he was in 9th grade. At first she just took him as her cousin from her mother's side but as they went to the same school and he likes to hang out in her house, the inevitable occurred.

Of course, she had learned to like him as a brother since a long time ago but after all that she had went through with the mischievous Turk, her second love, the sudden intimacy just startled her.

"You sure? Where have you been?" His wide brown eyes gazed at her, his hands were now back to its previous location, on her slumped shoulder.

"Yes, I'm okay." Where have you been? The question felt like a punch on her face, she was in Gaia, in a different world, living with a man with red hair. How the hell would they believe her? And about the last part, she would rather hide it from her family, especially her dad or god knows what will happen to her. Grounded for her whole life? Most probably worst than that. "What's happening inside?" She averted the last question and finally realized the rather too loud to ignore profanities from her house.

"It's…complicated." His hand automatically reached for the back of his head, indicating that he was thinking. "There was this guy...err, your uncle? Who suddenly showed up in your house and attacked your dad-"

"He really came?!" She exclaimed.

"Yeah…wait, you now this guy?" Kei eyed her suspiciously but was soon shoved out of the way by a man.

"Sei! Seira you're back!" The said man pulled the dazed brunette into a tight embrace, tight enough to squeeze the air out of her.

"Dad…" A muffled strained voice erupted against his chest and he loosen his hug, enough to let her breath normally again.

Sei wrapped her arms around her dad's bigger waist and returned the embrace. "I'm home…I met grandfather, your dad and your…brother."

"Did he hurt you? You okay? Nothing's wrong, right?" The middle-aged man released his tight hug and started to rub on every spot that was not under her garments, checking if there were any bumps or even a scratch on her skin.

"I'm okay, dad." She covered his hand which was checking under her uniform's sleeves with her smaller one and gave him the best smile that she could.

It hurts to smile, for the last two weeks she had been able to smile just because of him, the redhead, every time she did it only reminded her of him but now he wasn't here. She felt empty inside, her smile was just a cocoon to cover her growing sorrow, just a fake one, not her usual wholehearted smile but she knew that life goes on for everyone else, her worried family and friends. And brooding was not an option, she should stay strong for them.

"You really…went to Gaia?" He asked hesitantly as if it was a ridiculous question and people would laugh at it just at the thought.

"Yeah, your bro sent me." She answered monotonously.

"How is da-your grandfather-let's get inside first." Kyle asked nervously again, unsure of the words that he was using and immediately said a quick apology to his nephew who was 'accidentally' shoved by him. "Sorry, I didn't see you just now."

Kei rolled his eyes as soon as he saw his uncle's back and Sei chuckled at her cousin and father's usual antic.

* * *

"Where's mom?" The question sunk deep into Kyle's heart before he was able to answer his daughter's worried voice.

Sei had just suddenly remembered about her 8 months old pregnant mom, she was nowhere to be seen despite the ruckus that her male family member had made and it was rather unusual. Usually her mom would be the loudest in situations like this, when someone had not been heard for a long time and had just reappeared, but this time she haven't even heard of her name mentioned. Is she still in grandma's house? Definitely no, seeing at her father's reaction, she knew that her dad had been really worried in the last two weeks and her mom would never even think of leaving his side whatever her condition was.

"Dad, where's mom?" She inquired in a more demanding voice than before, stopping dead on her tracks into her living room.

"She's…upstairs, in her room. Three days after you disappeared…she couldn't take it anymore and delivered prematurely."

"WHAT?!" She screamed-no, shrieked louder than expected, eyes almost popping out and jaws practically almost dropping to the ground.

"They're still weak but they're out of the hospital a few days ago." He finally answered, ignoring the sudden high pitched voice which stung his ear and received a shove by the brunette who immediately ran up the stairs after getting her answer.

She stopped in front of the door and braced herself before turning the cold door knob and pushed the door open.

A pale woman with shoulder length black locks stood in front of a crib, leaning heavily on it and stretching a hand into something inside of the white baby bed.

"Mom?" Much to her surprise, her voice sounded more like a whisper but the older woman immediately recognized it and turned back, showing her brown eyes and slim frame.

If her face and head strong personalities were a copy of her father's, her body traits and eating habits were directly passed from her mother. Eating a lot doesn't really affect almost all of her mother's family members, it was their genes from her great grandfather and even though her mother was pregnant she still looked slim except for the big bump on her stomach.

"Sei?" Her mother breathed out, eyes already misty by the tears which were threatening to spill.

She just nodded and stretched her arms forward, ready for the impact of another tight hug.

"Where had you been?" They clashed on each other as they met in the middle of the room.

"It's a long story, but now I'm home. I miss you." The brunette smiled lightly and held her mother tighter.

"I miss you more, and you missed your brother's birth." The older woman said with a mock laugh, contrasting with the tears which had already slid past her cheek.

"Brother? It's a boy?" She broke apart from the embrace and as if on cue a delighted squeal came from the new born infant in the crib.

Seira walked pass her mother and approached the crib. She stretched her hand to the squealing baby which was immediately seized by him and squeezed as tight as he could.

"What's his name?" She inquired while letting her fingers feel the soft skin of the new born.

"Reno" She invisibly flinched at the choice of name and sighed.

"Nice to meet you…Reno. I'm your sis and I'm going to take care of you from now on, kay?" The baby with baby black locks laughed and squealed louder in reply making her sister giggle giddily at the new cute family member.

"Sei, we need to talk downstairs." The serious voice of her dad came from the still opened door, cutting off the happy laughter in the room.

She gently pulled her fingers out from her brother's what-seems-like a death grip to him and kissed his forehead before turning back.

The older woman covered her daughter's cold hand which earned her a small smile and a kiss at her pale cheek.

Sei squeezed her mother's hand and walked towards the living room on the first floor with her mother on tow.

The ordinary room was painted white and consisted of a TV, three and one seated sofas around a coffee table and another taller table which was full of photo frames on a corner of the room.

"What happened in the last two weeks? I asked Recca but he wouldn't open his mouth-"

"You beat him up-" Kei interfered but immediately stopped as he received a glare from the previous speaker, his uncle. "Sorry" He looked down and muttered remorsefully.

"Where is he?" She asked monotonously.

"He's in the garage." Kyle answered before his nephew could mutter another word again.

The brunette sighed before she started her long story. She summarized everything which had happened and started the story-telling session to her family, except the part that she lived with Reno and their intimacy of course. She would be skinned alive if they knew that she lived with a punk-not a punk actually, but his description really sounds like one.

"That bastard." The head of the family finally broke the silence after her story and cursed under his breath. "Kei, help me bring him here." Kyle requested-no, actually, to be precise, he ordered his nephew and both of the male left the room, leaving the two female into their consoling talk.

"Sei…you've gone through a lot." The older one finally broke the short silence. "So, where do you live there?"

Seira gulped almost audibly and gagged before she was able to think clearly and replied. "I lived with Cloud and Tifa at first and then moved in to grandpa's house." Thank god she didn't sound nervous at all and the reply that she got was just a short oh from her mom.

"You got any affairs there?" The raven haired woman asked innocently.

If the teen was drinking or eating, she would've spurted out all of her mouth's content and choke on it at the same time. "W-w-what?" She stuttered and her mom happily explained, innocently, again.

"You know, in novels where the hero or heroine usually came from another world, they met by destiny, fell in love but had to get separated when one of them had to go back to their world or found the purpose why they were sent their and have to disappear. But finally they meet again in weird circumstances, and the end! They live happily ever after."

"…Mom?" She blinked a few times, trying to process what the older woman had just said.

The door slammed open and the two older males entered with an extra personal who was tied up and carried on her dad's shoulder.

She silently sighed in relive and stared at the familiar male who was thrown to the couch across her.

"Before we start talking, I bet you both haven't introduced each other. Sei, this is Recca, my brother which I haven't met since twenty years ago, your uncle." He pointed at his brother and next pointed to Seira as he introduced her. "Recca, this is Seira, my one and only daughter-"

"I know her." He spat. "I had seen her a long time ago." Recca for the first time opened his mouth and spoke in front of Sei.

"What…? When?"

"10 years ago, when a mirror beside you suddenly shattered, I thought I had killed her that time." The man with raven locks smirked as he saw his elder brother balled both of his fists until his knuckles were white and looked as if he was ready to charge at him anytime, but his daughter's voice forced him back to his senses.

"What is your reason? Why are you doing this? You can't run away this time, so just spill it out or you'll be stuck like this forever, you live with dad since you were small so I bet you know his habits and personalities." The brunette who looked calm was actually boiling in rage and kept her composed countenance by counting from one to twenty over and over again in her heart. She was not mad because of all that he had done to her, but she was mad at what his actions had really made her family feel, worry, and the fear of losing.

The male who was interrogated stayed silent for a while before he gave up under the icy stare of her niece and the death glare from his brother. She was right, Kyle was really stubborn and he wouldn't let anything happen beyond his control. He had also gotten enough bruises and marks on his face and so…he decided to speak. "…I came here a year after Kyle disappeared via a book which I found in the archive room in dad's house. I landed up in America and struggled to live everyday while searching for you. I worked part-time and sometime even steal when there wasn't enough to eat. I almost gave up in life when I gave up in searching for you, it was fruitless, the three years I spent doesn't led me to a single clue of your whereabouts but then I met her, my wife. She rooted for me despite my economy condition, in happy or sad moment and finally I got a descent job. We married and moved in to a house and a year later my son was born. We decided to go to a trip to Japan, her homeland and then it all happened." He grimaced at the memory and paused.

"No way…don't say that they…" By now, Kyle was seated in the sofa next to Sei and was listening carefully to his brother's testimony.

"Yes, it happened, in a car accident. My wife died protecting me and my son, and then my son died not long after he reached the hospital, and me? I got this scar on my face, a burn on my back, broke my left hand and right leg, lost a family, and another reason to live."

"Recca, I…I never knew."

The raven haired man continued again, ignoring his brother's sympathetic look. He had told almost all of his life's tragedy by now, so he decided to just let it all out. "A month later I was already officially released from hospital thanks to dad's ability which was passed on to me, it was after their funeral and I was walking aimlessly in town when I saw you and your daughter. You looked so happy and it made me angry at how good your life was. Since we were small, you were always the first in everything except magic, even though you look like you never shed a single sweat. Mom died partly because of me but you and dad never blamed or neglect me. It made me angrier and without my control I made the glass beside you two explode. I thought your daughter died at that time, there were lots of blood but about a month ago I saw you again. Still alive and happy, so the only thing which I could think of was this, separates you two and make you feel the lost that I felt years ago."

"You…you've went through a lot." Kyle stood up and sat beside his long lost younger brother. He wrapped his arms around the younger man's neck and started to pat his raven locks like what he used to do when they were small.

The previously interrogated man tensed and then relaxed as a single tear slid from his left eye, making it look like he was crying with both eyes. "Sorry" He whispered to his older brother.

"There were two reasons why we couldn't blame you." The brunette male started.

"Huh?"

"Mom didn't die immediately after you were born. She said to me and dad to take care of you properly and she would haunt us if we blamed you about her death."

"Really?"

"And the second reason is…you were too cute when you were small, we couldn't find the courage to mistreat you as much as we wanted to." Kyle said with his serious tone still on, earning a cock of an eyebrow and gagging mouths from everyone.

* * *

She hated the rain since she was small, how could she cheer up when the sky was even crying. The deafening sound of the water clashing to the ground made everything sounded muffled, just like now. The brunette stared at the window, watching drops of water sliding down over the blurred glass. At times like this, she couldn't help but let her mind roam about the past, to the good ones…and the bad ones.

What is he doing right now? A thought suddenly came to her mind. Is he also thinking about her? Is he still waiting even though 6 months had passed? What if he had moved on and…found another girl?

6 months passed by without her notice. Her dad had forced her to finish the last year of school despite her beseeching to let her go back to Gaia. Now, a month had passed after the last day of school and here she was, still stuck in her room, staring at her window while she should've been in Gaia with her dear redhead.

She was grounded because Kyle said that she had hurt his feelings for begging to go back to Gaia rather than being with him and her mom, but of course it wasn't like that. She loved to be with her family, but right now she really, really wanted to see him, badly.

Smiling was not an easy job since they were separated and laughing was not as fun as it was before but she tried her best to look normal and now she was sick of it. She missed him; she missed his cocky smirk, rare smile, laughter, jokes, his touch and everything that he used to do for her. And she couldn't take it anymore.

The brunette deliberately stood up and dug through her closet. She threw a big duffel bag and a few pairs of clothes to the colorful single bed behind her. The clothes and a few items from her bathroom were carelessly thrown into the blue bag and it was already fully occupied.

Recca had taught her a few times about how to use magic and use the sun energy instead of the lifestream's but she was still a beginner and the warp magic was a dangerous one since she could end up anywhere if it was not casted properly. But she couldn't care less about it, the most important thing was to reach Gaia and she'll think about the rest later.

What if the player Turk had found another woman to replace her? She also couldn't care less about that, the later will come later when she meets him and what had happened will happen, so she'll just see what was on store for her. It wouldn't be that bad right…right?

Seira hung the bag on her shoulder and stretched her hand forward, palm facing outward and eyes closed. A barrier slowly built up around her and poof she was gone with a trail of smoke on the floor where she previously stood on.


	16. Epilogue

A/N: It's the end!! Sequel is coming up on Jan or Feb with the title 'Second Reunion'

Big thanks to Anexi Naie Taylor, Mity and everyone who reviewed, it really supported me for the last 7 months of this story's making to continue writing and I hope we meet again in my next story! And don't forget to review for the last time!

Wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy new year!

* * *

"Sei?" The brunette jumped at the sudden noise and immediately searched for the source. Even before looking back she knew who was the owner of the voice, the voice that she missed so much, she would do anything to hear and meet its owner again.

The redhead just stood for what seems like hours, breathless, wordless, actionless, unable to do anything much to his liking with the sudden surprise. He had imagined almost everyday about the day that she would come back and imagined what he would do when the time comes, but now he just stood, unable to think of what to do.

He stared at the brunette who was wearing a pair of sneakers, black jerseys and a black halfway zipped jacket which covered the almost transparent white tank top she was wearing beneath it.

"Reno" Her voice brought him back to reality.

Her voice, oh how he missed it, her soothing voice, the voice which could turn his frown upside down, her voice which could chase away all of his nightmares.

He jogged towards her and raised his hand but stopped mid-air right beside her flushed cheek. "Are you real?" He started. "Or my imaginations are playing tricks on me again, and you'll disappear as soon as I touch you?"

Sei chuckled and resisted the urge to roll her eyes. For the last six months, this was the first time that she could feel like this without a tinge of sadness in the corner of her heart. How many times had she imagined the scene where they met again but none of them was like this.

She cupped his hand and pushed it to her flushed cheek. "I think I'm real, I didn't disappear, right."

The brunette smiled and Reno immediately seized her in his arms. "I miss you." He breathed in her scent, refreshing his memories of it and tangled his hands in her golden brown locks.

"I miss you too." She wrapped her slender arm around his waist and rested her face on the crook of his neck.

Finally, Reno broke the embrace and immediately seized her lips as it came to his view. The butterfly kisses soon turned into a passionate one, he tilted her head and gained full access of her parted lips but Sei immediately pushed him back, surprised at the sudden unfamiliar contact.

"S-sorry." She apologized, still panting at the previous touch. Her mind was raking to find a topic to fill in before the awkward silent would surround them but it seems like her stomach understood the situation more than her head.

Her stomach growled, receiving a snort from her companion at first, before it turned into a full force roar of laughter.

"Y-your stomach always ruins the mood." Reno said while clutching his sides, trying his best to suppress his rather-too-loud laugh.

"W-what, you don't have to laugh that loud! I haven't eaten dinner because of waiting for you." She scolded him in embarrassment and felt her face flush more fiercely than before.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry. Now let's go eat. I miss your cooking." The redhead kissed her cheek before wrapping an arm around her shoulder and dragged the still dazed brunette out of the dim lit room.

* * *

The late night dinner went on with silence, save for the clattering of cutleries.

Reno stared at the brunette across him as if she would disappear if he took his sight away from her for even a second while clumsily directing the spoon to his wide open mouth.

"Reno, eat properly, I'm not going anywhere." She broke the silence and gestured to the redhead's cheeks which were smeared with curry, their dinner that night.

"W-what? I'm eating properly." He quickly wiped his face on his black Turk jacket and forced himself to look down on his food, hiding his flushed face.

He had unconsciously stared at her. It just didn't feel real and he was afraid that she would just suddenly disappear from his sight again.

"I can assure you that I'm 100% real, Reno." Sei pushed her empty plate aside and stretched her hand on the table, tangling her fingers in her usual nervous habit.

"I know, but I just-what took you so long?" He raised his head, revealing his pained expression and said.

"Sorry, it took me so long to come back." The brunette immediately looked down, unable to confront his deep baby blue eyes. "My dad kept holding me back." She reasoned.

"How did you get here?"

"I-I ran away from home." She finally blurted out and raised her head. If not given the current situation she would've laughed at the redhead's current expression.

His right eye was squinted while his left eye was wide open, mouth not fully closed but also not wide open. It was as if he was amused and in disbelieve at the same time. "I-I meant to ask you how did you get here but-seriously, you ran away from home?" He asked in bemusement and received a sheepish nod as an answer.

His next response was nothing surprising for a Reno to come with. A wide grin and a slow muffled "Nice" as he gulped another spoon of his dinner.

"Only you could say _nice_ to someone who ran away from their house, Reno." The brunette stared at him in disbelieve and chuckled.

"So, anything happened to that guy? I mean-your uncle?"

* * *

While explaining the whole incident which happened six months ago, Sei and Reno somehow made it to the couch in the living room. They conversed and traded information about the last six months in both worlds which they had missed.

"Five months?! Elena is pregnant?!" She squealed in delight and clasped her hand together in front of her chest.

"Yeah, she got married with Tseng about a month after their vacation. Heh, I bet she's already expecting before she got hitched." He snorted and gave his trademark cocky smirk.

"Wow, can't wait to see them. What about Rude? Cloud? Tifa?" She inquired excitedly and the redhead replied with the same enthusiasm about AVALANCHE and Turks' last effort to stick Rude and Yuffie together, which almost succeeded if only the young ninja was better at holding her liquor and Rude, wasn't too stoic, Tifa and Cloud's marriage which was coming around next month and all of their hectic days in Seventh Heaven and its inhabitant.

He had always wanted this, relaxing on a couch with one arm around her shoulder, conversing about their future or, actually, other's future.

The room was filled with their laughter, wicked giggles and small stupid talks until it was dawn when they ran out of topic and breath after laughing out loud.

Seira leaned her whole weight back and enjoyed the warmth of his arm on her nape. "A lot happened in these 6 months…but it still felt so empty for me." She closed her eyes and sighed in contempt.

Reno turned his head, facing her. He was taken aback by her words, the Seira that he knew was tough and not the type of person to really allow herself to show her feelings. Of course, the first days of their meeting was an exception, she was still trying to adapt to the new surrounding.

He snickered and smiled, secured his hands on her shoulder and turned her so that she was facing him. "Do you remember what I said, at that day of our last meeting?"

She nodded and averted her gaze, cheeks already flushed into ten different shades of red.

Well, whatever had changed in her wouldn't change his feelings and he was already starting to like her new character.

The redhead held the tip of her chin and turned her face to him. "Well, in case you don't remember, I can repeat it again to you, now or whenever you like." He smiled and whispered just when their lips were an inch apart. "I love you." And his trembling lips once again took hold of her inexperienced one's.

He kissed her lightly a few times before starting to angle her head so that he could gain access but the player Turk thought for a while and licked her bottom lip, asking for permission.

Rejected by one girl, twice, in less than 24 hour was going to be very not funny, so he proceeded carefully but when she parted her lips and his hot tongue threaded in carefully, he slightly jumped when she tried to mimic him.

She felt him smirk against her lips and felt relieved at her crazy attempt. It definitely wasn't a crazy attempt for a lot of people but it was for her, what can you say? She was inexperienced in these things and living with Reno is certainly going to change that.

They broke apart in need of air. The brunette panted heavily while Reno panted lightly.

Their arms were still around each other's neck as they panted heavily and stared at each other.

"Have I mentioned that, my dad would probably come here tomorrow?" The brunette glanced at the clock which was hanging on the wall behind the TV and mended. "To be more precise, in a few more hours." She stated innocently, receiving a snort and a grin from the redhead.

"How many blows will I get?" He asked as he started to rain kisses all over her face.

"Hmm, minimum… about three or four." She giggled giddily at the butterfly kisses and his antics.

He snorted again and smirked against her neck which was being treated by him "Can't wait for it." He drove his lips up and before kissing her again, he said. "A few hours won't be enough for all that we've missed-hell, forever won't be enough. But we can still do a lot of things in a few hours, right."


End file.
